Post2020 Biodiversity Strategy request
CfR 4/2018/1 To significantly contribute to the development of the EU post 2020 Biodiversity Strategy and the success of its implementation by, inter alia, ensuring the policy relevance of the ALTER-Net conference sessions and maximise uptake of its outputs.
A call for a European collective movement to halt biodiversity loss
For more information on the whole process, contact us at: post2020biodiversity@eklipse-mechanism.eu
In 2015, the European Commission’s Special Eurobarometer on “Attitudes of European towards Biodiversity” indicated that more than 80% of European citizens consider the various effects of biodiversity loss to be serious. More than 50% think they will be personally affected by biodiversity loss.
The current EU Biodiversity Strategy to 2020 will soon come to an end. Its aim is “to halt the loss of biodiversity and improve the state of Europe’s species, habitats, Ecosystems and the services they provide, while stepping up the EU’s contribution to averting global biodiversity loss” (EU Commission, 2011).
The mid-term review of the EU Biodiversity Strategy to 2020 by the EEA describes poor progress made in implementing the actions and achieving the six targets set out in the strategy. The report demonstrates that although actions on the ground, supported by adequate financing, can protect and restore nature and the benefits it provides, on a European scale we are unequivocally falling short on all but one of the targets. The IPBES assessments on the state of biodiversity and ecosystems in the European region, published in 2018, confirms the dire state of biodiversity and ecosystems in the EU, as well as the consequences for the economy and society.
After the failure to meet the 2010 target and now the negative prognostics to meet the 2020 target, the European Commission, the research community and all societal actors cannot afford another failure. Lessons must be learned from previous failures.
We, ALTER-Net and EKLIPSE, see in the development of the EU post 2020 Biodiversity Strategy a unique opportunity to join forces and take advantage of their individual strengths to make a difference for biodiversity in Europe by engaging scientists, policy makers and society to 1) stimulate both the European Commission and the research community toward a robust and effective post-2020 EU Biodiversity Strategy and 2) develop an engagement strategy to create awareness and ownership from science, policy and society to implement it.
With this, together with you, ALTER-Net and EKLIPSE wish to significantly contribute to the development of the EU post 2020 Biodiversity Strategy and the success of its implementation.
The work started in an open Horizon Scanning workshop in Peyresq in September 2018. Here the process for collecting contributions and recommendations for the EU post 2020 Biodiversity Strategy was planned and initiated. To maximize this input, task forces have been set up and a series of events and activities have been put into action (see also Fig 1).
NOW… we call on other groups and initiatives working on the EU post 2020 Biodiversity Strategy to join forces to build a strong movement among the Biodiversity community to participate in the development of the EU post 2020 Biodiversity Strategy (Task Force “Movement”). This call will invite the scientific, the policy and society communities to contribute to a series of events:
As a Citizen…
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We (“task force society”) are planning different activities to reach out to societal actors, such as citizens, NGOs, business etc., to gather their key messages regarding biodiversity and to inspire and engage with them in dialogue about the environmental problems facing Europe. The messages are gathered via videos, a web survey and telephone survey and discussed in local or regional events both face to face and online. At the ALTER-Net & EKLIPSE conference in June 2019 (see below) we will evaluate what gaps exist between the messages collected from scientists and citizens and how we could bridge the gaps to make recommendations that reflect the best available knowledge and societal relevance. You as a citizen in Europe can contribute by:
The conference will be followed by a campaign aimed at gathering support from diverse societal actors. As part of gathering societal input for the post2020 strategy EKLIPSE asked citizens across Europe what their environmental concerns are. Watch the video to find out what they answered!
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As a scientist…
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We (Task force “Scientific contribution”) are planning to gather and filter a collection of key messages for the post-2020 Biodiversity strategy from the scientific community. For this, based on your scientific expertise, you as scientist can contribute by giving your opinion on key messages that would be gradually selected to end up with 20 and then 5 key messages to propose to the European Commission at the end of 2019.
Key messages should be rather short (only one paragraph), with no direct scientific citations. Their link with the current EU Biodiversity strategy should be explicitly mentioned (even if there is no direct link). These key messages will be noted and commented by the scientific community on an Internet survey site: http://old.soorvey.com/?s=3DC6HQYLIRNQYLI.
A priori, based on comments received, some key messages will be removed, some will evolve, some will appear and some will stay. This means that the list of key messages might change through time. We have been keeping an exact track of changes of key messages that are available here and via the Internet survey site.
These preliminary key messages were discussed in the ALTER-Net conference in June 2019. Here you can find the key messages submited to the European Commission.
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| An International ALTER-Net & EKLIPSE conference in Ghent (17 – 19 June, 2019), presenting preliminary results and setting up jointly the next steps. The EKLIPSE approach will be used to ensure the policy relevance of the conference sessions, and so that the concerns of diverse knowledge holders and of society are put forward at the conference. For instance, an EKLIPSE Call for Request dedicated to the EU post 2020 Biodiversity Strategy will be launched first week of March to approach decision makers linked to and interested in the process of the development of the EU post 2020 Biodiversity Strategy (DGs, CBD secretariat, government representatives, local/regional authorities, and other relevant stakeholders). This Call will ask them to propose questions concerning biodiversity and ecosystem services beyond 2020 – their needs, obstacles, problems they have in the process of developing the post 2020 Biodiversity strategy. The selected requests will be translated by EKLIPSE to "questions" which could become topics of sessions or part of a session. Science Key Messages will contribute to the backbone of the conference. They will be presented and discussed at different times of the conference: during plenary sessions, during a dedicated session and during other thematic sessions. |
| In the frame of this request on Post2020 Biodiversity Strategy EKLIPSE launched a Call for Experts (CfE.8/2020). The purpose of this call was to invite experts to share their knowledge on the topic and join a science-policy workshop “Transformative Change for the post-2020 global Biodiversity Framework“ on March 18th in Brussels. This Call for Experts (CfE.8/2020) is entitled: Find the Call for Experts here. Deadline to answer the Call: March 3rd 2020. The forecoming workshop on transformative change in the global post-2020 Biodiversity Framework is organized by the European Commission and the Croatian Presidency of the Council of the European Union and supported by EKLIPSE. To read more about the workshop click here. For registering to the workshop click here. |
| Papers collecting results of the movement and of the participatory approaches (scientific and societal inputs) have been written. Together with the International ALTER-Net and EKLIPSE conference, the science paper will be a scientific filter of the whole process: it will include a state of the art of scientific knowledge for each key message. Should there be any key message in contradiction with current scientific knowledge, it would be removed. The sience paper is currently under major revision. |
Join forces: As anyone, any projects, initiatives planning to contribute to the development of the EU post 2020 Biodiversity Strategy and the success of its implementation…
| Let us know about your plans and events, how we could help you with dissemination and networking, and how we could think together how our activities could complement each other to increase the chance to make a difference. You can reach us at post2020biodiversity@eklipse-mechanism.eu |
ALTER-Net and EKLIPSE are inviting the European community to raise interest in joining this movement, to send feedback on the framework for collaboration and to participate in the events and task forces mentioned above.
For more information on the whole process, please visit:
http://www.eklipse-mechanism.eu/post2020_request
or contact us at:
post2020biodiversity@eklipse-mechanism.eu
