Biodiversity, ecosystem services and sustainable futures. Where are we? Where can we go?
Biodiversity and ecosystem services underpin human economies and societies. Their continuing loss, climatic changes and social and economic disruptions present unprecedented challenges connected from local to global levels. These crises can be seen as one of a set of pathways enabled by the global order maintained for the last 80 years. Are we close to an end-point of this pathway? If this is an ending, what positive transformations can be seeded? What are plausible resets to global priorities given conditions today? Global science-policy platforms provide increasingly clear and consistent findings, pointing towards new and differentiated responsibilities and actions required of different countries and actors. Acknowledging that biodiversity and ecosystem services are the foundations of human life, one set of future options identifies avenues for balancing the relationships between nature, economy and society. In it, underlying drivers are addressed, enabling building a stable order that is ‘safe and just’ for all people, and minimizes biodiversity loss and earth system changes. Deep transformations in priorities for conservation, economic/financial sectors and social outcomes will be needed to shift current trajectories towards balance and sustainability. Join us for a talk by
David Obura, Chair of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES)
, who will tackle the questions raised above and will also be joined by an expert panel to discuss relationships between business and biodiversity and IPBES' aims ahead of its twelfth plenary session taking place in February in Manchester.
In-person registration is now closed but if you would like to attend online please use the Zoom link below:
When: Jan 27, 2026 04:30 PM London Topic: In Conversation with David Obura https://jbs-cam.zoom.us/j/87560181766
