Biodiversity loss in specific areas is increasingly related to production and consumption processes situated elsewhere, at the regional, national and global levels. As such, the protection of this biodiversity cannot rely only on protected areas, local interventions or technical limited measures anymore. Conversely, to design innovative interventions and public policies effectively combating biodiversity loss, there is a need to understand how markets—and especially global markets—determine the impacts of agriculture, forestry, fisheries, mining and other sectors on biodiversity at the local level.
This conference intends, on the one hand, to shed light on how global “value chains” (alternatively called “commodity chains” or “filières”) shape choices made by farmers, foresters, fishers or miners and in turn their impact on biodiversity; on the other hand, it will reflect on the outcomes of existing and possible options, especially at the global level, to improve cross-sectoral policies for biodiversity conservation.
Programme
Introduced by Teresa Ribera, director of IDDRI, two high-level specialists will contribute to this discussion:
- Pascal CANFIN, a former minister delegate with the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs and currently head of WWF France, will explain WWF’s approach to transforming global markets and reducing their impact on biodiversity. WWF has indeed developed a large range of activities intending not only to understand global value chains and their relation with biodiversity loss, but also to get involved in their governance, and to partner with businesses which are ready to better integrate biodiversity in their value chain organisation. Its “market transformation initiative” is an example of such intervention.
- Dr. Martin PERSSON, Associate Professor at the Chalmers Universityof technology (Sweden), will share recent and outstanding results that clearly relate global trade in commodities with deforestation and provide the attendance with extensive information regarding the links between consumption, trade and biodiversity loss.
It will be held both in French and English and fully translated.
The series of conferences on biodiversity and ecosystems organised by IDDRI and the Fondation d' entreprise Hermès aims to contribute to making biodiversity a real issue for society, by opening up debates beyond purely expert circles.
It was launched with an inaugural conference on 16 February 2010 at the musée du quai Branly (Paris) entitled "Biodiversity 2010 and beyond? ».
