Conference Agenda

The United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity's Kunming–Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) presents the opportunity to preserve nature's contributions to people (NCPs) for current and future generations by conserving biodiversity and averting extinctions. Phylogenetic diversity (PD) represents the evolutionary history of species, a history that has produced the benefits biodiversity provides to humanity. There is therefore a need to safeguard the tree of life—i.e., the unique and shared evolutionary history of life on Earth—to maintain the benefits it bestows into the future. We developed two indicators for the GBF to monitor progress toward safeguarding the tree of life: the phylogenetic diversity (PD) indicator and the evolutionarily distinct and globally endangered (EDGE) index. Here, I discuss the journey to achieving the adoption of these indicators in the GBF, from developing the technical underpinnings of the indicators to the advocation and engagement with various stakeholders along the way. The adoption of the indicators is just the beginning, and represents an unprecedented opportunity to bring species' evolutionary history, and its link to maintaining NCPs, to the core of public biodiversity policies. I will present our next steps for ensuring we realise this potential.

Genetic diversity within and among populations of all species is necessary for nature and people to survive in a rapidly changing world. Yet, genetic diversity conservation has been long overlooked in major conservation policy mechanisms, including pre-2020 United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) strategies where genetic diversity targets, wording and indicators were undeveloped and only focused on species of agricultural or economic relevance. In December 2022, the CBD adopted the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, which now includes strong wording and targets on genetic diversity conservation, and specific genetic indicators to report on the status of genetic diversity for all species. This presentation will provide an overview of how science and policy have been interfacing during the last years to evolve wording, targets, and indicators of the GBF related to genetic diversity, lessons learned from this process, and ongoing and future steps that are needed to maintain, protect, manage and monitor genetic diversity.

One year after the ratification of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, countries are grappling with the challenges of updating their national biodiversity strategies, as well as establishing a systematic monitoring system, while simultaneously implementing conservation actions that build upon the previous decade's efforts.

To address these challenges, it is essential to implement knowledge management systems that integrate both biodiversity state assessment and the measurement of progress towards national and global biodiversity targets, in accordance with the adopted moniotoring framework.

Over the past decade, the BIOPAMA program has developed and implemented a knowledge management system, the Reference Information System (RIS), across sub-Saharan Africa, Caribbean, and Pacific regions. This system has been designed to monitor both biodiversity state and global-to-national conservation targets achievements by bridging local and global datasets.

In this presentation, we will share the lessons learned from this process, with a focus on the following key areas: governance of knowledge management systems; diversity of needs of stakeholders across regions and countries; tradeoffs between technology, credibility, and relevance; top-down versus bottom-up information flow and global versus local data in biodiversity monitoring; and role of regional international centers in closing the knowledge gaps and reducing inequalities.

With >1 million species estimated to be threatened with extinction, urgent conservation action is needed to achieve the newly agreed Global Biodiversity Framework’s mission of “halting and reversing biodiversity loss”; but which conservation actions work and for which species? For many species, there is no evidence on what conservation actions are needed. The IUCN Red List as the largest dataset on species’ conservation information offers an opportunity to understand this question. Two key subsets of this dataset were used to explore (i) which types of species have improved in status and (ii) which actions are responsible for the improvements. We used two sources to measure improvements in conservation status: genuine improvements in Red List status and impacts of past conservation from the Green Status of Species. In general, birds and mammals with smaller distributions, and those threatened by residential or commercial development or invasive species, are more likely to have improved in status. Direct conservation actions, such as species reintroductions or translocations, rather than protected or conservation areas, more often led to improvements in species status. We discuss possible reasons for these findings, and how they can inform future conservation decisions.

Amid a global infrastructure boom, there is increasing recognition of the ecological impacts of the extraction and consumption of construction minerals, mainly as concrete. Recent research highlights the significant and expanding threat these minerals pose to global biodiversity. To what extent is this pressure acknowledged in biodiversity conservation policy? We investigate how high-level national and international biodiversity conservation policies, including the 2011-2020 and post-2020 biodiversity strategies, the national biodiversity strategies and action plans, and the assessments of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, address mining threats with a special focus on construction minerals. We find that mining appears rarely in national targets, but more frequently in national strategies with greater coverage of aggregates mining than limestone mining, yet it is dealt with superficially in most countries. We then outline 8 key components tailored for a wide range of actors for addressing the biodiversity impacts of construction minerals, which comprises actions such as improving reporting and monitoring systems, enhancing the evidence-base around mining impacts on biodiversity, and influencing the behavior of financial agents and businesses. Implementing these measures can pave the way for a more sustainable approach to construction mineral use and safeguard biodiversity.

During the 1968 General Assembly of the IUCN, Senegalese Baba Dioum delivered a widely quoted statement: "In the end we will conserve only what we love, we will love only what we understand, and we will understand only what we are taught." This statement has been frequently referenced in the literature but has not undergone empirical scrutiny. In our investigation, we assessed the potential relationship between biodiversity knowledge and conservation attitudes in several distinct cohorts: Austrian high school students and university students majoring in disciplines such as chemistry, biology, geography, English, and German. Our analysis revealed no statistically significant correlation between biodiversity knowledge and the inclination towards conservation. Based on these results, we deduce that contemporary society widely perceives nature conservation as a positive imperative, and therefore, possessing specialized knowledge about biodiversity does not appear to be a prerequisite for recognizing the importance of conservation efforts.