This session explores biodiversity driven crop breeding combined with nature based and agroecological solutions to develop climate smart, nutritious food systems that support ecosystem health and human well being. Facing challenges like climate change, soil degradation, water scarcity, and nutrient deficiencies, agriculture requires innovations beyond yield focused methods to enhance biodiversity and sustainability. Focusing on cereals and pulses such as wheat and soybean, the session highlights breeding strategies that optimize root nodulation and beneficial plant microbe partnerships to reduce synthetic fertilizer use, lower emissions, and protect water quality, cutting costs for farmers. Breeding for improved soil microbiome compatibility boosts nutrient efficiency and stress tolerance. Advanced techniques like marker-assisted and genomic selection accelerate development of resilient, nutrient efficient varieties.
Examples will show how integrating climate resilience with biodiversity friendly practices supports soil health, pollinators, and ecosystem stability. Nutritional gains through biofortification and improved protein quality will be discussed. The session also covers benefits for farmers and local industries: reduced inputs, stable yields, improved livelihoods, and access to sustainable, high quality crops that open new markets. Participatory breeding and seed sovereignty empower communities. Policy options include funding incentives, biodiversity inclusive certification, multi-stakeholder governance, and payment for ecosystem services schemes rewarding sustainable farming.By linking biodiversity, water, food, health, and climate, this session fosters dialogue on breeding solutions that strengthen resilience, nutrition, and ecosystem integrity.

Biodiversity patterns are rapidly changing with increasing rates of colonization and extirpation associated with anthropogenic climate change. Some species are undergoing range shifts and altering their phenology to track suitable environmental conditions, while others alter their behavior to avoid unsuitable conditions or rapidly evolve their thermal or hydric tolerances. Meanwhile, many species are experiencing steep population declines as habitat becomes unsuitable whereas others are expanding their distributions as newly suitable habitat is created or as humans assist their dispersal. Researchers are increasingly integrating a growing assortment of participatory science databases with biodiversity records, high-resolution environmental information including remote sensing products, and machine learning or AI to understand these changes. Traditionally, researchers have explored relationships between climate means (via data from weather stations, remote sensing platforms, or modeled projections) and shifting biodiversity patterns under climate change. However, extreme weather events are increasing in frequency, duration, and intensity and are now becoming well appreciated for their role in pushing organisms beyond their physiological thermal or hydric tolerances, limiting where they can persist and influencing biodiversity patterns. As microclimate information increasingly becomes available through advanced modeling approaches and the widespread deployment of in situ sensors, researchers can estimate whether species might persist despite local changes in macroclimate. As climate change accelerates, researchers must employ cutting-edge datasets and techniques to generate the clearest picture of current and future biodiversity patterns and improve conservation outcomes.

The clean energy transition is fueling unprecedented growth in mining for metals and aggregates. This push to decarbonize drives operations into biodiversity hotspots, creating a direct conflict between climate goals and conservation. Mining impacts biodiversity through diverse pathways that extend far beyond its physical footprint and can persist, or worsen, long after operations cease. With only a small fraction of mines undergoing successful restoration, the cumulative environmental burden from active and legacy mines creates substantial conservation challenges. Yet, mining depends on biodiversity for services like water purification for processing minerals and seed dispersal for ecological restoration.

This session will present evidence of these impacts across multiple scales, bringing together researchers, industry, policymakers, and Indigenous and local knowledge holders to explore transformative mitigation strategies. We will also explore how mining companies can address their nature-related dependencies, impacts, risks, and opportunities. We invite submissions covering the full mining lifecycle, from impact assessment and large-scale mapping to the development of quantification tools that reduce habitat loss and pollution, and rehabilitation methods to restore or enhance biodiversity. Studies on energy transition materials (metals, aggregates) and the legacy impacts of coal are encouraged.

We aim to foster dialogue on the biodiversity-climate nexus at the heart of the energy transition. By bringing together diverse stakeholders, we will identify pathways that reconcile mineral demand with global biodiversity targets. Ultimately, we will produce key recommendations for science, policy, and practice to ensure mining supports a nature-positive future.

Nature-based Solutions (NbS) are actions that protect, restore, and sustainably manage natural or modified ecosystems to tackle pressing interconnected challenges such as climate change, food security, water availability, and disaster risk reduction. Although NbS can be applied across many sectors, agriculture represents a particularly significant area of intervention. This is because agricultural practices often intersect—and often conflict—with efforts to conserve and protect nature. By embedding NbS in agricultural systems, it becomes possible not only to reduce these tensions but also to unlock co-benefits for productivity, resilience, and ecosystem health.
At the same time, it is crucial to recognize that the landscapes where agricultural expansion and intensification occur, and where ecosystem pressures converge, are frequently the very places where issues of environmental justice remain most acute. Moreover, conventional agriculture puts immense pressure on nature and jeopardizes the health of rural communities, while holding tenure over vast areas of land, and thereby, the ability to unlock some of these tensions and conflicts.
This session therefore seeks to explore the opportunities for scaling up NbS for a more sustainable agriculture through the lens of environmental justice. By doing so, it aims to highlight pathways for inclusive, equitable, and transformative approaches that strengthen both ecological integrity and social well-being.

Biodiversity is the foundation of resilient food systems, yet modern agriculture often relies on a narrow range of crops and genetic resources, leaving global food security vulnerable to climate extremes, soil degradation, and pest outbreaks. This session will explore how crop genetic diversity from landraces to advanced breeding material can be harnessed to achieve climate-resilient, sustainable, and nutrition-secure agricultural systems.
We invite contributions that examine biodiversity’s role in:
•Developing climate-smart crops using conventional, molecular, and AI-assisted breeding methods.
•Integrating crop biodiversity with ecosystem services, such as nitrogen fixation, carbon sequestration, and pollinator support.
•Applying biodiversity-based approaches to enhance soil health, water-use efficiency, and pest/disease resilience.
•Designing agroecological and regenerative farming systems that strengthen the biodiversity–food–climate nexus.
•Translating research into policy and value-chain innovations that benefit smallholder farmers and biodiversity conservation.
The session will also highlight case studies from underutilized crops—such as soybean innovations in South Asia—that demonstrate how biodiversity-rich agricultural strategies can simultaneously improve livelihoods, reduce import dependency, and contribute to Kunming-Montréal GBF targets.
We welcome interdisciplinary, scalable research connecting genetic, species, and ecosystem-level biodiversity.
Intended Outcome:
To generate a cross-disciplinary synthesis of how biodiversity-based crop innovation can operationalize climate adaptation and sustainable food production, leading to a research–policy–practice roadmap for biodiversity-resilient agriculture.

Global commitments for ecosystem restoration are gaining regulatory and public recognition, yet we are faced with an urgent question: How do changes in the landscape shape the risk of infectious diseases?

There is growing evidence that landscape degradation is driving increased rates of spillover from animals and vectors into humans, but it is unclear whether restoring ecosystems can protect against these effects. Restoration creates novel ecological interactions, altering the distribution and abundance of hosts, vectors and pathogens. These shifts may amplify risk during community reassembly or may rebuild resilience and disease dilution effects if restoration also restores ecosystem functioning. This challenge is particularly urgent given that restored environments often still experience anthropogenic pressure.

This session will bring together cutting-edge research and practice to assess the relationship between landscape change and disease and examine when and how landscape or ecosystem restoration may be protective, or risky in terms of disease emergence or spread. Contributions spanning empirical fieldwork, laboratory, modelling, remote sensing, social, economic and ecological drivers, community engagement and policy practice are all welcome, as are new technological approaches including AI.

Because the relationship between disease spillover and landscape change, particularly restoration, is an inter- and transdisciplinary problem, this session will convene expertise across ecology, public health, social sciences, restoration practice and policy. Together, we will identify the conditions under which landscape change supports both biodiversity recovery and planetary health, while recognising the economic and regulatory realities that shape ecological futures.

To foster innovation and mutual learning, the session will feature short oral presentation clusters followed by dynamic inter-cluster panel dialogues, where each cluster pitches to and builds on the next. This format is designed to ignite cross-sectoral conversations, challenge assumptions, and co-create actionable insights on one of the most pressing biodiversity–health challenges of our time.
Co-Conveners Nadja Kabisch, Lena Robra, Adrian Egli

Biodiversity loss, water and food insecurity, public health threats and climate change are deeply interconnected challenges. Addressing them effectively requires a shift from siloed approaches to integrated, systems-based strategies that reflect the complexity of social-ecological interactions. This session explores the “biodiversity nexus”: the web of interdependencies linking biodiversity with water, food, health and climate change — and the pathways toward cross-cutting solutions.
The recent IPBES Nexus Assessment highlights the potential of nexus approaches to deliver co-benefits across systems. Nexus approaches identify synergies, minimize trade-offs, and support more holistic, equitable and sustainable solutions. From Indigenous food systems and green infrastructure to nature-based solutions and integrated governance, diverse strategies are emerging across regions and sectors. However, operationalizing such approaches presents analytical, institutional and governance challenges.
This session invites contributions that advance understanding of nexus interlinkages; assess trade-offs and synergies; evaluate response options; and propose integrated tools that can support systemic transformation. We welcome contributions from the IPBES Nexus Assessment that provide a deep dive into aspects of the report and aligned interdisciplinary research from diverse contexts.
By bridging theory and practice, this session encourages ecologists, systems scientists, public health researchers, climate experts, social scientists and practitioners to share insights and explore how nexus thinking can be turned into action. Outcomes will include identifying key research gaps and showing how integrated science can inform more coherent, just, and sustainable responses to global crises.

What if the next biodiversity breakthroughs were already here—but needed expert, diverse insights to succeed? Through an interactive workshop, we want to bring science-based, nature-positive startups from I4N’s Solutions Portfolio to the discussion table. Each startup will briefly present its solution and then engage directly with participants to discuss critical challenges—ranging from scaling to policy integration to market adoption – opening the floor for participant feedback and co-creation. Together, participants and startups will assess pathways that help these innovations move from pilot stage to real-world impact. This is a unique opportunity for researchers, policymakers, and practitioners to actively shape the success of biodiversity-positive innovation, making their perspectives count. The goal is to create a space where science and practice meet, enabling participants to actively contribute expertise while supporting emerging innovators in developing stronger pathways toward impact.

SIGN-UP LINK: https://ee.kobotoolbox.org/x/GnQR1twW

Globally, there is a growing interest from the younger or present future generation, commonly known as the early-career researchers (ECRs), in engaging in SPPIs. This is driven by several factors, including but not limited to the need to contribute to positive societal change, understand policy processes, and career development, among others (Filyushkina et al., 2022). In most regions, such as Africa, the barriers among the Next Gen of Leaders to effectively contribute to and strengthen SPPI include a lack of adequate understanding about involvement channels, limited knowledge of engagement platforms and opportunities, funding constraints, inadequate and/or sometimes inappropriate training, and, many times, low credibility perceptions of emerging capacity by other actors across the SPPI.

Despite the ongoing efforts to address the drivers of change and achieve the biodiversity-climate-society connectivity goal, little attention is placed on bringing together inter-generational think-tanks, policy-actors, and grassroots players from various disciplines and spaces. Africa is experiencing a deficit or lack of deliberate programs that are designed to leverage the inter-generational SPPI research talents and skills, expertise, innovation, and lived experiences to help upend the curves of change and achieve biodiversity-climate-society connectivity. The NextGen of SPPI Leaders on Biodiversity, Climate, and Society seeks to consolidate and transfer, through a regional stock-take, inter-generational SPPI capacity and leadership in Africa. It will co-create, implement, and evaluate SPPI initiatives that seek to address, through fostering partnerships and collaborations, the triple-challenge of biodiversity loss, climate crisis, and the need to meet socio-economic needs.  

This workshop explores the transition from basic biodiversity measurements to meaningful indicators and impact measures, with a particular focus on the role of species richness across ecological, food systems, and nutritional contexts. We begin by examining how species richness contributes to ecological function and multifunctionality, highlighting its alignment with dietary species richness, a concept increasingly recognized for its role in supporting human health and nutrition. Experts will present current evidence showing how species richness in production systems is associated with diversity in food supply, food environments, and dietary patterns. These findings provide insights into how biodiversity can be assessed across multiple levels. The workshop will also explore the divergence between production and supply diversity, and the role of trade and consumer demand in shaping food system biodiversity. Structured as a dynamic and interactive session, the workshop will feature short expert presentations, facilitated discussions, and breakout groups to build consensus on robust biodiversity indicators that inform impact assessments and policy decisions across ecology, agriculture, food systems, and nutrition.

This 90-minute workshop will explore how Nature-based Solutions (NbS) can link science, policy, and practice to address disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation, while safeguarding biodiversity and strengthening societal resilience. Drawing on evidence and practical experience from national and regional initiatives, the session will highlight innovative approaches that harness ecosystem services for risk reduction and sustainable development. Case studies from the EU-funded NBSINFRA and ALBATROSS projects will illustrate NbS as living laboratories where scientists, policymakers, practitioners, and communities co-produce knowledge and test solutions in urban and rural contexts. These examples demonstrate how NbS can be adapted to diverse settings while generating transferable lessons for scaling.

The workshop emphasizes co-production of actionable knowledge across rights holders and stakeholders to ensure NbS are inclusive, credible, and effective. Key enabling conditions such as robust scientific frameworks, evidence-based policy design, innovative financing mechanisms, and cross-sectoral partnerships will be discussed to strengthen trust in science and biodiversity-informed decision-making. Goals include sharing science-based insights, comparing rural and urban applications, exploring enabling conditions for scaling NbS, and capturing stakeholder perspectives. Expected outcomes include a synthesis of evidence and lessons, identification of capacity-building priorities, and strengthened science–policy–society dialogue to advance resilient, inclusive societies.

The IPBES Transformative Change Assessment (2024) advances an actionable framework for assessing strategies and interventions to achieve the sustainable development goals. Its emphasis on transformative change as integral changes in views, structures, and practices can be applied to interventions for advancing the SDGs and the 2050 Vision for Biodiversity. Thus the TCA proposes a novel reconceptualization of the means to achieve and advance targets associated with the 17 SDGs and with the 2050 Vision of the Global Biodiversity Framework of the Convention of Biological Diversity.
A systematic understanding of TC is critical to achieve the SDGs and the 2050 Vision because the SDGs and the 2050 Vision envisages a complete transformation of global economies and natural systems. To achieve the SDGs and the Global Vision, we must reconceptualize strategies and mechanisms that build on the insights of the TCA to advance these global goals. The TCA’s framework for transformative change pinpoints the key elements missing from current efforts by governments, non-profits, and business organizations to advance the SDGs. It highlights how attention to integral shifts in views, structures and practices can be incorporated into SDG and biodiversity focused efforts for more systematic advance for a better world for biodiversity and people. The proposed panel session will focus on the sustainable development goals closely related to biodiversity and nature: Life below water, Life on land, Climate action, and Responsible consumption and production. The papers will analyze opportunities for common interventions related to these goals to assess how they can lead to transformative change for sustainable development through integral shifts in views, structures and practices.