Could dialogue help preserve biodiversity?

The third Global Biodiversity Outlook reports that some ecosystems - on which we depend for food and fresh water, health and recreation, and protection from natural disasters - may soon reach ‘tipping point’ where they rapidly become less useful to humanity.

The UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, warns:

“The consequences of this collective failure, if it is not quickly corrected, will be severe for us all.”

Collective failures require collective solutions. Encouragingly, a recent Eurobarometer survey on public attitudes to biodiversity shows that more than 8 in 10 EU citizens (84%-93%) feel that biodiversity loss is a very or fairly serious problem at national, European and global levels.

The question then is not about whether the public is convinced of the need to protect biodiversity but how it is done. The report recommends:

‘Where possible, tackle the indirect drivers of biodiversity loss. This is hard, because it involves issues such as consumption and lifestyle choices, and long-term trends like population increase...public engagement with the issues combined with appropriate pricing and incentives...could reduce some of these drivers, for example, by encouraging more moderate, less wasteful - and more healthy - levels of meat consumption.’

It would seem timely, given that 2010 is the European Year of Biodiversity, that the public is engaged in actively shaping and framing how these difficult decisions and trade-offs are made.

Sciencewise-ERC is planning to support a public dialogue project that will include aspects of biodiversity. Visit the project pages of the Sciencewise-ERC for further information in the next few weeks.