Background and issues
The Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), which was launched in 2015, began publishing its first assessments in 2016. How these first reports will influence debates on biodiversity policies, and potentially support their implementation, will now be a point of attention for the conservation community.
Thanks to its unique structure and its desire to mobilize a vast diversity of knowledge, IPBES is a historic opportunity to synthesize available knowledge on the causes, rooted in human collective action, that are behind biodiversity loss. Adding more emphasis on these topics in future IPBES assessments will require the development of innovative interdisciplinary work among ecological and social sciences and is crucial to finding relevant policy options to halt biodiversity loss.
Moreover, follow-up and review of the impact of IPBES work on biodiversity debates and action is essential to the development of future assessments, especially the platform’s next work programme (2020-2030).