World Biodiversity Forum, Davos (June 27-July 1)

The World Biodiversity Forum was organised in Davos, Switzerland between June 27^th and July 1^st 2022. It brought together around 1000 scientists, practitioners and societal actors through around 500 oral presentations, 16 plenary talks and multiple workshops and training sessions. The forum was a call for actions and solutions to conserve biodiversity and realize a transformation for sustainability.

Prof. Wende from TU Dresden and IOER participated in the conference with an oral presentation on biodiversity offsets in the context of urban and infrastructural development. He also co-organized a joint session together with the Leibniz Research Network Biodiversity and Dr. Kirsten Thonicke from Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. The researches presented on a wide variety of topics from urban and rural landscape change to modelling insect habitats. The joint session covered the topic of 'Biodiversity changes in social-ecological systems – use of data and knowledge to support societal transformation towards sustainability'.

Davos is known for hosting the World Economic Forum each year. However, The World Economic Forum’s Global Risk Report for 2022 recognises biodiversity loss as the third highest risk facing humanity over the next ten years. Hosting the World Biodiversity Forum in Davos underlines the importance of urgent action on biodiversity loss.