At the Folkemødet, IPBES in Denmark placed a strong emphasis on the value of biodiversity and on the need to adopt holistic solutions when addressing individual crises.
The People’s Meeting has once again come to a successful close, and here at IPBES in Denmark, we are looking back on some exciting and eventful days in Allinge.
This year, we organized two events that highlighted the value of biodiversity and how the biodiversity crisis is inextricably linked to global crises related to, among other things, climate change, food production, water quality, and health.
One Comprehensive Crisis
“In the past, people have tended to work in silos—on the biodiversity crisis, the health crisis, climate change, food security—but it’s all interconnected, and this report from IPBES has sought to illustrate the connections between these issues.”
That was the message from Carsten Rahbek, professor of biodiversity and chair of the Danish steering committee for IPBES, when he took the stage at the Folkemøde’s Research Stage on Thursday to deliver a presentation titled “Biodiversity, Climate, and Health: One Comprehensive Crisis.”
The presentation was based on the key messages and points in the IPBES global Nexus report from 2024, and highlighted how climate change, biodiversity loss, food production, water quality, and health are not separate problems, but rather deeply interconnected global crises. Drawing on the Danish context, Rahbek reviewed the various areas and explained that solutions in one area often create unintended consequences in others when addressed separately.
In closing, Rahbek illustrated how a holistic approach—one that focuses on nature-based solutions that address all the challenges at once—can create future scenarios that yield positive results across all areas —a message that also resonates strongly in IPBES’s global Nexus report.
You can watch or rewatch the highlights of the presentation in the video below, and if you’d like to delve deeper into the IPBES Nexus Report, you can find it here: IPBES Reports – IPBES in DENMARK
The panelists emphasized holistic solutions
On Saturday, it was time for IPBES’s second event in Denmark: the panel discussion “The Intersection Between the Biodiversity Crisis and Societal Needs.” Here, five panelists—including politicians, researchers, and experts—discussed how, in a Danish context, we can promote holistic solutions that do not overlook or neglect biodiversity when we seek solutions in other crisis-stricken areas such as food production, health, water quality, and climate change.
Like the previous event, this panel discussion again took the key messages of the Nexus report as its starting point, but also drew heavily on IPBES’s global report on values, which has recently been applied to a Danish context in the expert opinion “Values of Biodiversity.”
The panel consisted of Mette Termansen, professor at the Department of Food and Resource Economics at the University of Copenhagen; Mads Skau, mayor of Haderslev Municipality; Anders S. Barfod, Associate Professor at the Department of Biology, Ecoinformatics, and Biodiversity at Aarhus University (AU); Bo Jellesmark Thorsen, Vice Chair of the Climate Council; and Hanne Haack Larsen, Director of the Aage V. Jensen Nature Foundation. All of them contributed important insights and perspectives to the debate on the barriers and opportunities that arise when we attempt to integrate the biodiversity crisis with various societal needs.
Mads Skau, mayor of Haderslev Municipality, emphasized the importance of drawing on knowledge and local insight when we need to come up with solutions that work:
“It’s just so important that when we do all this [work], we base it on knowledge—including local knowledge—because a tremendous effort has already been made for Haderslev Dam and Haderslev Fjord, without it having any effect.”
Associate Professor Anders S. Barfod went on to emphasize that it is important for us to think long-term:
“When we make decisions about nature and the development of nature in the Danish landscape, they must be permanent, because we need to ensure continuity and sustainability in both space and time.”
There was broad agreement among the panel members that it is beneficial to adopt a holistic approach and, in particular, to take biodiversity into account when seeking solutions to various societal needs. However, it was also pointed out during the discussion that both economic and value-based barriers can easily arise in the planning process for implementing such solutions.
In this context, Hanne Haack Larsen emphasized that it is not only the economic, resource-oriented value that should be emphasized as a driving force, but that it is also about raising awareness of nature’s human value:
“But in reality, it’s also about this human value. What value do we place on the nature around us? I think that nature has a right in and of itself.”
If you’re curious to hear more of the panel’s thoughts from the debate, you can watch or rewatch the highlights in the video below. If you’re interested in delving deeper into IPBES’s publications, you can find the global reports here: IPBES Reports – IPBES in DENMARK, and the Danish expert opinion on values can be found here: Danish IPBES Publications – IPBES in DENMARK.
