Biodiversity and Nature’s Contributions Continue Dangerous Decline, Scientists Warn – IPBES regional assessment reports

Description

The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) released four regional assessment reports in March 2018 highlighting options to protect and restore nature and its vital contributions to people. Biodiversity and nature’s capacity to contribute to people are being degraded, reduced and lost due to a number of common pressures. One of these pressures named in the reports is climate change. The four regional assessments of biodiversity and ecosystem services cover the Americas, Asia and the Pacific, Africa, as well as Europe and Central Asia – the entire planet except the poles and the open oceans.

More than 550 experts, from over 100 countries have reviewed several thousand scientific papers, government and other information sources, including indigenous and local knowledge in the last three years. Their goal was to provide information about each region’s land-based, freshwater and coastal biodiversity, as well as the state of ecosystem functioning and nature’s contributions to people. This information should help decision makers to make better choices about how to halt and reverse land degradation.

Structure and content of the assessment reports:

1. Policy-relevant questions & themes per region and subregion as well as methods and approaches of the assessment
2. Nature’s contributions to people and good quality of life
3. Status, trends and near future dynamics of biodiversity and ecosystems
4. Direct and indirect drivers of change in nature in the context of different perspectives on quality of life
5. Analysis of possible interactions between the natural world and society in the long term
6. Options for governance, institutions and decision-making – especially on the SDGs, Aichi Targets and Paris Agreement

 

Summaries for policymakers of all four assessment reports (Africa, the Americas, Asia – Pacific and Europe & Central Asia): https://www.ipbes.net/assessing-knowledge

Reference information