Biodiversity and ecosystem services science for a sustainable planet: the DIVERSITAS vision for 2012–20

• Published in: Current opinion in environmental sustainability Vol. 4; no. 1; pp. 101 - 105
• Main Authors: Larigauderie, Anne, Prieur-Richard, Anne-Hélène, Mace, Georgina M, Lonsdale, Mark, Mooney, Harold A, Brussaard, Lijbert, Cooper, David, Cramer, Wolfgang, Daszak, Peter, Díaz, Sandra, Duraiappah, Anantha, Elmqvist, Thomas, Faith, Daniel P, Jackson, Louise E, Krug, Cornelia, Leadley, Paul W, Le Prestre, Philippe, Matsuda, Hiroyuki, Palmer, Margaret, Perrings, Charles, Pulleman, Mirjam, Reyers, Belinda, Rosa, Eugene A, Scholes, Robert J, Spehn, Eva, Turner, BL, Yahara, Tetsukazu
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Elsevier B.V 01.02.2012; Elsevier
• Subjects: biodiversity; Bodembiologie; Bodembiologie en biologische bodemkwaliteit; Chair Soil Biology and Biological Soil Quality; ecosystem services; Environment and Society; Environmental Sciences; landscapes; Leerstoelgroep Bodembiologie en biologische Bodemkwaliteit; PE&RC; Soil Biology; Soil Biology and Biological Soil Quality
• ISSN: 1877-3435; 1877-3443; 1877-3443
• DOI: 10.1016/j.cosust.2012.01.007

► Human well-being depends on multiple ecosystem services, many of them being underpinned by biodiversity. ► Biodiversity continues to be lost at an unprecedented rate. ► Decision-makers and policy-makers require sound scientific foundation to secure the planet's biodiversity and ecosystem services, while contributing to human well-being and poverty eradication. ► The new DIVERSITAS vision is built around four main research challenges to help guide the global research community towards this foundation. DIVERSITAS, the international programme on biodiversity science, is releasing a strategic vision presenting scientific challenges for the next decade of research on biodiversity and ecosystem services: “Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services Science for a Sustainable Planet”. This new vision is a response of the biodiversity and ecosystem services scientific community to the accelerating loss of the components of biodiversity, as well as to changes in the biodiversity science-policy landscape (establishment of a Biodiversity Observing Network—GEO BON, of an Intergovernmental science-policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services—IPBES, of the new Future Earth initiative; and release of the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011–2020). This article presents the vision and its core scientific challenges.