Nature as an Afterthought? A Debate about Risk Perception, Urgency and Agency in an Era of Polycrisis

Organized by Taskforce on the Governance of Nature and Biodiversity

In the current polycrisis, it may often seem that the loss of nature and biodiversity is buried by other, more visible or more easily communicable crises such as geopolitical tensions, inflation, climate change, food insecurity, and many more. It may even seem as if we live in times where caring for nature is perceived to draw attention and resources away from (seemingly) more immediate, more pressing concerns. In Europe, intensified food production is once again pushed at the expense of species-rich agricultural landscapes; across the global South, renewable energy hydropower projects are implemented at the expense of destroying entire landscapes; in several donor countries, defense budgets are growing while budgets for conservation are cut. The World Economic Forum’s Global Risk Report for 2023 identifies biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse as a fairly peripheral node in the polycrisis. So is nature just an afterthought in theses days and times? And if so, does this mean that we fail to grasp the fundamental vulnerability and dependency of human wellbeing on nature? Do we proliferate the polycrisis by failing to address the drivers of ecological decline and putting nature’s contributions to people centre stage? Eventually: What options do we have to give the loss of nature the recognition it deserves as one of many global threats to lives and livelihoods?

With the next CBD CoP starting just a few after the ESG online forum, we aim to bring the debate on transformative change for bending the curve of biodiversity loss (the overarching goal of the Global Biodiversity Framework) to a diverse stakeholder panel representing different sectors (agriculture, finance and trade), to discuss how environmental risk perception, urgency and agency inform priorities and actions in their work environment and what more is needed. The panel will be moderated by Katie Minderhoud (PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency) and Ina Lehmann (Department of Environmental Policy Analysis, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam).