Global priorities of environmental issues to combat food insecurity and biodiversity loss

• Published in: Science of The Total Environment
• Main Authors: Scherer, Laura, Svenning, Jens-Christian, Huang, Jing, Seymour, Colleen, Sandel, Brody, Mueller, Nathaniel, Kummu, Matti, Bekunda, Mateete, Bruelheide, Helge, Hochman, Zvi, Siebert, Stefan, Rueda, Oscar, van Bodegom, Peter M.
• Other Authors: Department of Built Environment, Water and Environmental Eng., Leiden University, Aarhus University, Kirstenbosch Research Centre, Santa Clara University, Colorado State University, International Institute of Tropical Agriculture, Arusha, Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), University of Göttingen, Aalto-yliopisto, Aalto University
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier Science B.V. 2020
• Subjects: Pioritization; Effectiveness; Environmental protection; Global change; Agriculture; Ecosystems; Ocean acidification
• Online Access: https://aaltodoc.aalto.fi/handle/123456789/44485; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.139096

| openaire: EC/H2020/819202/EU//SOS.aquaterra Various environmental challenges are rapidly threatening ecosystems and societies globally. Major interventions and a strategic approach are required to minimize harm and to avoid reaching catastrophic tipping points. Setting evidence-based priorities aids maximizing the impact of the limited resources available for environmental interventions. Focusing on protecting both food security and biodiversity, international experts prioritized major environmental challenges for intervention based on three comprehensive criteria - importance, neglect, and tractability. The top priorities differ between food security and biodiversity. For food security, the top priorities are pollinator loss, soil compaction, and nutrient depletion, and for biodiversity conservation, ocean acidification and land and sea use (especially habitat degradation) are the main concerns. While climate change might be the most pressing environmental challenge and mitigation is clearly off-track, other issues rank higher because of climate change's high attention in research. Research and policy agendas do not yet consistently cover these priorities. Thus, a shift in attention towards the high-priority environmental challenges, identified here, is needed to increase the effectiveness of global environmental protection. (C) 2020 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. Peer reviewed