IPBES Spatial Planning and Connectivity Assessment: First author meeting at IIASA

The assessment will consider how biodiversity and human wellbeing can be integrated into decisions about land and sea use, while providing policymakers and practitioners with tools and approaches for effective conservation, restoration, and sustainable use of nature.

IIASA researchers will play leading roles in shaping the assessment itself:

• IIASA Biodiversity, Ecology, and Conservation Research Group Leader, Piero Visconti, will serve as Coordinating Lead Author of Chapter 3, which will explore the role of protected areas and ecological restoration in achieving objectives for biodiversity while accounting for people’s needs.
• Martin Jung, a senior research scholar in the same group, will serve as Lead Author of Chapter 4, which will examine the role and importance of ecological connectivity as a component of spatial planning.

Hosting this first author meeting demonstrates IIASA’s longstanding involvement in IPBES and its expertise in integrated, systems-based approaches linking biodiversity, human wellbeing, and sustainable development.

On the margins of the author meeting, the Austrian Academy of Sciences (OeAW) – IIASA’s National Member Organization for Austria – together with IIASA, the Austrian IIASA Committee at OeAW and the Commission for Biodiversity in Austria, will host a dedicated minisymposium in Vienna on 22 September, where the Austrian perspective on this new assessment will be highlighted. The event will be a unique opportunity not only to learn about the report and its context for Austrian landscapes and implementation, but also to meet the authors and engage in in-depth discussion.