Co-produced transformative knowledge to accelerate change for biodiversity (RAINFOREST)

Human consumption, production, and trade of food and biomass are the main underlying causes of biodiversity loss. And demand for food and biomass rises with affluence and population growth, threatening ecosystem service provision and, ultimately, human well-being. Three quarters of the global land area has been significantly changed, more than 80% of global wetlands have been lost, and marine systems are increasingly under pressure. The intensification and expansion of agriculture has enhanced the supply of food and biomass to a growing world population but come at a substantial cost in terms of loss of natural forests and grasslands, overfertilization, and increasingly uniform and biodiversity-poor agroecosystems. In addition, the climate crises represents a progressively larger threat to biodiversity, which may even exceed land use impacts during this century.

The objective of RAINFOREST is to contribute to enabling, upscaling and accelerating transformative change in Europe towards reducing biodiversity impacts of major food and biomass value chains by closing knowledge gaps, demonstrating the effective co-generation and use of knowledge in stakeholder processes to formulate transformative policy options and related innovative governance arrangements. Specifically aiming to:

1. co-develop and investigate just and viable pathways for transformative change and policies for their implementation with stakeholders;
2. enhance assessment models to allow for the quantification of biodiversity impacts at different spatial and organizational levels (e.g. company, national and global scales);
3. highlight and exemplify the application of the investigated pathways for transformative change in case studies;
4. investigate and co-generate governance and financial reforms at all scales;
5. explain, visualize and communicate our results and tools to a diverse audience.

The project seeks to understand the feasibility of various pathways and transformative change intervention portfolios through 7 case studies from Europe to the Americas. The pathways and elements of the case studies will then be quantified using a modeling toolbox combining integrated assessment models, biodiversity models, input-output models as well as life cycle analysis tools and methods. And the lessons learned from both the analysis of the pathway quantification and the case studies will be synthesized and widely disseminated to support policy making in Europe and beyond.

Partners and collaborating organisations

Norges Teknisk-Naturvitenskapelige Universitet (NTNU)

Senckenberg Gesellschaft fuer Naturforschung (SGN)

Stichting Radboud Universiteit (RU)

Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universitat Bonn (UBO)

Unilever Innovation Centre Wageningen BV (Unilever NL)

Pontificia Universidad Catolica Del Peru (PUCP)

Bonn.Realis EV (BR)