The article provided a classification of scientific research relating to European Green Deal (EGD) issues to assess their compatibility with areas identified in the EGD strategy document and identify emerging future research directions. A systematic literature review was based on bibliometric analysis and focused on articles in Scopus and Web of Science databases. The systematic literature review aimed to identify, integrate and evaluate research on the selected topic based on clearly defined criteria. Research query included (TITLE-ABS-KEY (“EU” OR europ*) AND TITLE-ABS-KEY (“green deal”) ) in the case of Scopus and TS = (“EU” OR europ*) AND “green deal”) in the case of Web of Science. In total, 641 publication records were qualified for analysis. The bibliometric analysis allowed identifying eight thematic clusters and linking them to the eight areas of the European Green Deal strategy. The bibliometric analysis enabled the identification of eight thematic areas of international research undertaken in relation to the European Green Deal. These cover a variety of topics from social sciences, engineering, agriculture,  sciences and natural sciences. Clusters included: Energy, circular economy, industry, building, mobility, food, biodiversity and pollution.

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European Green Deal — research directions. a systematic literature review

The EU Biodiversity Strategy (EUBDS) for 2030 aims at regaining biodiversity by strengthening the protection of nature in the European Union. This study models and analyses possible impacts of the EUBDS on the production and trade of forest-based products in the EU and non-EU countries in two alternative scenarios. Implementing EUBDS measures would allow a maximum EU roundwood production of roughly 281 M m3 in 2030 in the intensive and 490 M m3 in the moderate scenario. Since in the reference scenario, the EU roundwood production amounts to 539 M m3 in 2030, this represent a reduction of −48% and −9% in 2030, respectively. Until 2050, the production further decreases and accounts for 42% and 90% of the reference production. Globally, the EU roundwood production deficit is compensated partly (roughly between 50%–60%) by increasing production of roundwood in non-EU countries (e.g., USA, Russia, Canada, China and Brazil) whereas the remaining share of the EU production deficit is no longer produced and consumed worldwide. In the EU, reduced roundwood availability leads to a lower production of wood-based products, although, apparent consumption of wood-based products remains similar. This is mainly caused by significantly lower export volumes of wood-based products and, for some product groups, by significantly increased imports as well. This is partly due to unchanged assumptions regarding income and thus, demand patterns. However, on a global level, decreased production and consumption of wood-based products could lead to a growing use of non-bio-based resources to substitute wood-products. Our study also shows that the magnitude of effects strongly depends on how much the use of forest resources is actually restricted.

https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4907/13/8/1225/pdf?version=1659959954

Assessment of Possible Production Leakage from Implementing the EU Biodiversity Strategy on Forest Product Markets

Achieving coexistence between humans and large carnivores in human-shaped landscapes is a complex challenge. Addressing this challenge requires the revaluation of the approaches academia uses to foster carnivore conservation and human-large carnivore coexistence. In this forum paper, we provide a brief overview of the three archetypical approaches of knowledge generation for large carnivore conservation in human dominated landscapes (disciplinary, interdisciplinary and emerging transdisciplinary approaches) and highlight the need for more explicit consideration of transdisciplinarity in large carnivore conservation funding. We refer to transdisciplinary deficit (TDD) for those situations when the context allows the implementation of transdisciplinarity but research and practice remains disciplinary or interdisciplinary. We identify drivers of this TDD and provide a brief overview of current and past conservation funding programmes at the European level in terms of their capacity to promote transdisciplinary approaches for large carnivore conservation. We show that current funding programmes favour sectorial and disciplinary approaches, resulting in low transdisciplinary substance in large carnivore conservation projects. TDD can be overcome by transforming the character of public funding towards multi-stakeholder collaboration, designing and nurturing effective communities of practice, and reducing co-financing rates for large, integrated projects.

﻿Transdisciplinary deficit in large carnivore conservation funding in Europe

Policy discourses for reconnecting nature with society: The search for societal engagement in Dutch nature conservation policies.

Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity are finalizing a new Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) to more effectively guide efforts by the world’s nations to address global loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services. Each party is required to mainstream the new framework and its component targets into national conservation strategies. To date, such strategies have been criticized as largely aspirational and lacking clear linkages to national policy mechanisms, which has contributed to the world’s general failure to meet the Convention’s previous targets. We use the United States and European Union as examples to compare and contrast opportunities and barriers for mainstreaming the GBF more effectively into policy. The European Union and United States have unique relationships to the Convention, the former being the only supranational party and the latter, having signed but never ratified the treaty, adopting Convention targets on an ad hoc basis. The contrasting conservation policy frameworks of these two polities illustrate several conceptual issues central to biodiversity conservation and demonstrate how insights from the GBF can strengthen biodiversity policy even in atypical contexts. We focus on three characteristics of the GBF which are essential if policy is to effectively motivate and guide efforts to halt and reverse biodiversity loss: comprehensiveness, coherence, and ambition. Statutes in both the United States and European Union provide a strong foundation for mainstreaming the GBF’s comprehensiveness, coherence, and ambition, but policy development and implementation falls short. We identify six common themes among the reforms needed to successfully achieve targets for reversing biodiversity loss: broadening conservation focus to all levels of biodiversity, better coordinating conservation strategies that protect sites and landscapes with those focused on biodiversity elements (e.g., species), coordinating biodiversity conservation with efforts to safeguard ecosystem services including ecosystem-based climate mitigation and adaptation, more coherent scaling of targets from global to local extents, adoption of a more ambitious vision for recovery of biodiversity, and development of effective tracking and accountability mechanisms.

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S. Katsanevakis

Papers

The EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030: Opportunities and challenges on the path towards biodiversity recovery