Natural capital in the Netherlands: Recognising its true value
Nature provides all kinds of goods and services that offer economic opportunities, such as a water, food, building materials and recreation areas. However, this 'natural capital' is under pressure due…
Pragmatic governance in a changing landscape. Exploring the potential of embedded pragmatism for addressing global biodiversity conservation
The changing societal landscape has become a breeding ground for non-state actors as ‘new agents of change’ who contribute to dealing with global issues, such as biodiversity conservation and climate…
Investigating the challenges and opportunities for scaling up ecosystem restoration
Land degradation and restoration have become increasingly central to international policy discussions given the launch of Sustainable Development Goal 15 – Life on Land. This background report…
Trends in Global Vegetation Activity and Climatic Drivers Indicate a Decoupled Response to Climate Change
Detailed understanding of a possible decoupling between climatic drivers of plant productivity and the response of ecosystems vegetation is required. We compared trends in six NDVI metrics (1982–2010)…
Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats: A SWOT analysis of the ecosystem services framework
The ecosystem services concept is a cornerstone of contemporary sustainability thought. Challenges with this concept and its applications are well documented, but have not been systematically assessed…
Impacts of European livestock production: nitrogen, sulphur, phosphorus and greenhouse gas emissions, land-use, water eutrophication and biodiversity
Livestock production systems currently occupy around 28% of the land surface of the European Union (equivalent to 65% of the agricultural land). In conjunction with other human activities, livestock…
GLOBIO-Aquatic, a global model of human impact on the biodiversity of inland aquatic ecosystems
Biodiversity in freshwater ecosystems is undergoing rapid global decline. Major drivers are land use change, eutrophication, hydrological disturbance, climate change, overexploitation and invasive…
Integrating Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services in the Post-2015 Development Agenda: Goal Structure, Target Areas and Means of Implementation
Since the Rio+20 summit, discussions on a new set of sustainable development goals have taken centre stage in the United Nations. This paper discusses how biodiversity and ecosystem services may be…