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With more than 70 options for taking action, IPBES presents its most comprehensive assessment of the interlinkages between biodiversity, water, food, and health to date for advising decision-makers. Experts from the Thünen Institute of Biodiversity contributed their knowledge.
Braunschweig (22 October, 2025). The Nexus Report of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) is now publicly available. With an assessment of more than 70 potential courses of action, the current publication reaches an unprecedented scale, making it one of the most ambitious reports ever produced by the IPBES community.
The Nexus Report is the first to assess the links between biodiversity, water quality and availability, food security, health, and resilience to climate change impacts. More than half of the world's population already lives in regions that are affected by negative impacts in these elements. The authors emphasise how closely interlinked the global crises are and how they can be better managed by taking integrative decisions on issues that are so far treated separately. They argue in favour of making integrated and adaptive decisions a principle of decision-making.
One example of such global interdependencies is the worldwide decline of biodiversity in agricultural landscapes caused by intensification and specialisation of agriculture. It is characterised by the loss of wild species, natural habitats, and genetic resources such as in seeds or animal breeds. This type of agriculture produces less nutritious food and jeopardises food security. According to the Nexus report, this not only weakens the vitality of agricultural systems, but also the resilience of food systems to weather extremes, pest infestations, and other disruptions. In addition, social systems that provide employment and health, or economic systems that are linked to income generation and productivity, may lose strength. "If we continue to make isolated decisions about individual nexus elements, vital planetary boundaries will be crossed. As the nexus elements are inextricably linked, rapid rethinking and integrated actions are essential for fostering the urgently needed changes that promote positive outcomes for nature and people," says Diana Sietz from the Thünen Institute of Biodiversity, one of the nominated lead authors of the Nexus Report. She and Christian Levers as contributing author have contributed scientific expertise in the research areas of agroecology, social-ecological systems, and transformative change to the Nexus Report.
165 scientists from all over the world were involved in compiling the Nexus report. The report thus provides decision-makers with a well-founded scientific assessment of the interlinked crises and illustrates options of overcoming them.
The more than 70 options for action evaluated by the experts have been summarised in ten categories, each of which presents a broad spectrum of effective measures. Examples of these categories, which have a largely positive impact on all nexus elements, include:
- integrated management of landscapes and marine areas to protect species, habitats, and the climate, and to avoid water and air pollution,
- managing biodiversity to reduce risks of disease transmission from animals to humans,
- restoring carbon-rich ecosystems such as forests, soils, and mangroves,
- supporting Indigenous knowledge and food systems.
The options for action at political, social, and community level outlined in the Nexus report are already available today, some of them at reasonable cost and quickly effective.
The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services with more than 150 member states, assesses the status of biodiversity and ecosystem functions at the request of governments and other decision-makers. Based on this, it identifies options for action and politically relevant instruments that can help to formulate and implement targeted political measures. In this way, IPBES aims to support decision-making processes with scientifically sound, independent, and legitimised information in order to use biodiversity sustainably and ensure the long-term well-being of people.
Dr. Diana Sietz
Thünen Institute of Biodiversity, Braunschweig
E-Mail: diana.sietz@thuenen.de
Telefon: +49 531 25 70 12 99
https://www.ipbes.net/nexus-assessment The Nexus Report of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES)
The global crises are closely interlinked.
Quelle: Thünen-Institut
Copyright: Thünen-Institut/Eigene Darstellung
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