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28 november 2022, Contains fulltext : 285216.pdf (Author’s version preprint ) (Open Access), Bending the curve of biodiversity loss is a key priority for humanity and requires urgent action. The rapid loss of biological diversity threatens human lives, livelihoods and well-being globally,and is reinforcing, and being reinforced by, climate breakdown2. In December 2022, the 15thConference of the Parties (COP15) of the Convention on Biological Diversity will be held inMontreal. It is essential that an ambitious, specific and measurable Global BiodiversityFramework is agreed at this COP. However, governments alone are unlikely to reverse negativetrends in biodiversity. We suggest that a Biodiversity Action Agenda that mobilizes nature recovery actions from across society -- including businesses, investors, civil society groups, and local communities -- should be included as a complement to governmental efforts. If governments can agree on a strong Framework, an Action Agenda can create productive links between multilateral and transnational actions, for example by leveraging capacities from multiple actors, implementing goals, demonstrating solutions, and spurring national governments towards greater ambition. If, however, governments fail to agree on an ambitious Framework,or the subsequent implementation of the agreement suffers from political backlash or adismantling of national biodiversity policies, the Action Agenda can help sustain action and build momentum.

Biodiversity conservation within the gamut of global environmental governance has gained significant traction over the past three decades. Many initiatives to meet global biodiversity conservation targets have been launched in the meantime. Frameworks such as the latest Kunming/Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) have identified the importance of NGOs, social movements, firms and sub-national actors as change agents towards redressing biodiversity loss. This report terms such non-state actors ‘International Cooperative Initiatives on Biodiversity’ (ICIBs). It presents a framework to assess their impact on biodiversity conservation, and applies it to eight relevant cases. Although many uncertainties remain, the report shows that ICIBs reach 100s millions of hectares worldwide, and substantially contribute to enhancing biodiversity in those areas.

Contains fulltext : 250464.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Open Access)

Contains fulltext : 286359.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Open Access)

Agricultural land systems, covering about 40 percent of the world’s ice-free terrestrial surface, are the single largest contributor to biodiversity loss worldwide (Chapin et al., 2000; IPBES, 2018a; 2019). Agricultural practices have been linked to staggering losses in critical ecosystems such as tropical forests and ecologically functional species such as pollinators, raising concerns of losing biodiversity as both an intrinsic global value and as a central pillar of food security and ecosystem functions (IPBES, 2016; Laurance et al. 2014; Ramankutty et al., 2018).

Archetypes are increasingly used as a methodological approach to understand recurrent patterns in variables and processes that shape the sustainability of social-ecological systems. The rapid growth and diversification of archetype analyses has generated variations, inconsistencies, and confusion about the meanings, potential, and limitations of archetypes. Based on a systematic review, a survey, and a workshop series, we provide a consolidated perspective on the core features and diverse meanings of archetype analysis in sustainability research, the motivations behind it, and its policy relevance. We identify three core features of archetype analysis: recurrent patterns, multiple models, and intermediate abstraction. Two gradients help to apprehend the variety of meanings of archetype analysis that sustainability researchers have developed: (1) understanding archetypes as building blocks or as case typologies and (2) using archetypes for pattern recognition, diagnosis, or scenario development. We demonstrate how archetype analysis has been used to synthesize results from case studies, bridge the gap between global narratives and local realities, foster methodological interplay, and transfer knowledge about sustainability strategies across cases. We also critically examine the potential and limitations of archetype analysis in supporting evidence-based policy making through context-sensitive generalizations with case-level empirical validity. Finally, we identify future priorities, with a view to leveraging the full potential of archetype analysis for supporting sustainable development.

Targets for human development are increasingly connected with targets for nature, however, existing scenarios do not explicitly address this relationship. Here, we outline a strategy to generate scenarios centred on our relationship with nature to inform decision-making at multiple scales.

What does the future hold for the world’s ecosystems and benefits that people obtain from them? While the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) has identified the development of scenarios as a key to helping decision makers identify potential impacts of different policy options, it currently lacks a long-term scenario strategy. IPBES will decide how it will approach scenarios at its plenary meeting on 22–28 February 2016, in Kuala Lumpur. IPBES now needs to decide whether it should create new scenarios that better explore ecosystem services and biodiversity dynamics. For IPBES to capture the social-ecological dynamics of biodiversity and ecosystem services, it is essential to engage with the great diversity of local contexts, while also including the global tele-coupling among local places. We present and compare three alternative scenario strategies that IPBES could use and then suggest a bottom-up, cross-scale scenario strategy to improve the policy relevance of future IPBES assessments. We propose five concrete steps as part of an effective, long term scenario development process for IPBES in cooperation with the scientific community.

Food production is key to achieving food security in the drylands of sub-Saharan Africa. Since agricultural productivity is limited, however, due to inherent agro-ecological constraints and land degradation, sustainable agricultural intensification has been widely discussed as an opportunity for improving food security and reducing vulnerability. Yet vulnerability determinants aredistributed heterogeneously in the drylands of sub-Saharan Africa and sustainable intensification cannot be achieved everywhere in cost-effective and efficient ways. To better understand the heterogeneity of farming systems’ vulnerability in order to support decision making at regional scales, we present archetypes, i.e. socio-ecological patterns, of farming systems’ vulnerability inthe drylands of sub-Saharan Africa and reveal their nestedness. We uantitatively indicated the most relevant farming systems’ properties at a sub-national resolution. These factors included water availability, agro-ecological potential, erosion sensitivity, population pressure, urbanisation, remoteness, governance, income and undernourishment. Cluster analysis revealed eight broadarchetypes of vulnerability across all drylands of sub-Saharan Africa. The broad archetype representing better governance and highest remoteness in extremely dry and resource-constrained regions encompassed the largest area share (19%), mainly indicated in western Africa. Moreover, six nested archetypes were identified within those regions with better agropotential and prevalent agricultural livelihoods. Among these patterns, the nested archetype depicting regions with highest erosion sensitivity, severe undernourishment and lower agropotential represented the largest population (30%) and area (28%) share, mainly found in the Sahel region. The nested archetype indicating medium undernourishment, better governance and lowest erosion sensitivityshowed particular potential for sustainable agricultural intensification, mainly in western and