Biodiversity Response Options for sustainably managing the Biodiversity–Water–Food–Health Nexus

Coordinated ecosystem interventions and enabling governance are needed to address the interlinked crises of biodiversity loss, water and food insecurity, increasing health risks, and climate change. Biodiversity supports all other nexus elements through the supply of nature's contributions to people (NCP), yet policy and decision-making often neglects biodiversity or prioritizes other elements. We present fourteen response options aimed at biodiversity conservation actors which were described in Chapter 5.1 of the IPBES Nexus Assessment. These options include area-based conservation, agroecology, urban nature-based solutions, restoration of various ecosystems, rewilding, and enablers like multilateral environmental agreements, rights-based approaches, land and sea planning and reconnecting people to nature. Synthesis of available evidence shows that these response options positively impact at least four of the five nexus elements, with agroecology, ecosystem-based adaptation and integrated landscape and seascape approaches showing particularly broad benefits. In this presentation, we provide practical examples of the response options and discuss insights into key enablers and barriers to successful implementation including the key role of power distribution among multiple actors. Biodiversity response options involve multiple actors and institutions in their implementation. While such implementation promote various forms of social equity, the pre-existence of social equity provides a conducive environment for implementation success. Response options involving participatory processes and associated social innovation also show an important potential for transformative change. In many cases, but particularly for rights-based approaches, response options demonstrate evidence of multiple dimensions of transformation. Nevertheless, there exist significant data gaps in understanding the social and economic effectiveness of response options for biodiversity, which may impact their ability to be carried out at scale. We conclude that response options such as those presented here have the potential to reach the balance between multiple goals, contributing to the achievement of the Convention on Biological Diversity’s 2050 Vision of living in harmony with nature as well as the 2030 Agenda and its Sustainable Development Goals.