Understanding the perceptions of and improving communication on the biodiversity crisis and nature restoration benefits to sustain citizen engagement and democratic governance

Expected Outcome

Successful proposals will contribute to the expected impacts of this destination notably by identifying mechanisms to raise awareness on the biodiversity crisis and on opportunities of biodiversity protection and restoration including for climate mitigation and adaptation.

Project results are expected to contribute to all of the following expected outcomes:

• policy-makers at all levels better understand how different groups of stakeholders and citizens perceive the biodiversity crisis and its underlying conflicts, as well as the potential impacts of new policies in this area and in climate adaptation and mitigation. This leads to better-informed and more inclusive decision-making and policy implementation, based on the identification of tensions and opportunities;
• policy-makers at all levels are able to implement innovative forms of co-creation and deliberative processes involving citizens throughout the policymaking cycle in order to improve policy-making and eventually contribute to effective mobilisation for collective action in favour of nature restoration and protection, and climate mitigation and adaptation;
• all sectors of society understand the biodiversity crisis and the full extent of its impacts on their lives, including the interplay with climate change and the need for synergies with climate adaptation and mitigation; they understand the critical role of nature restoration in addressing these impacts and are empowered to contribute to it.

Scope

With the EU biodiversity strategy for 2030, the Kunming-Montréal Global Biodiversity Framework, and more recently the adoption of the EU Nature Restoration Regulation, the EU has taken strong commitments to address the challenges of the biodiversity crisis, in addition to the current efforts towards increasing resilience to climate change embedded in the EU climate policy. Strong scientific evidence supports the need to act, given the importance of biodiversity and ecosystems for society, economy and resilience.

However, as the debates for the negotiation of the EU Nature Restoration Regulation showed, there are different levels of understanding and different approaches towards challenges to be addressed among the EU society, which is increasingly polarised with activists and citizens engaged in nature protection (and more generally environment protection) on the one hand and defenders of the status quo on the other hand. This has even led to local conflicts. While the engagement of activists is visible, little is known about how the rest of society values nature and what citizens think should be done for its protection and restoration.

R&I activities are expected to:

• conduct comprehensive research to better understand civil society´s plurality of perceptions and understanding of the biodiversity crisis, its underlying conflicts and links with climate change, identifying key concerns and perspectives. The analysis should identify and quantify the relevance of stakeholder groups and population segments (e.g. based on gender, age, disability, socio-economic status, ethnic and/or cultural origins, etc. and their intersections) sharing similar perceptions and interests. This analysis should build on results of existing research on the relationship between people and nature, including relationship between nature and culture, historical and/or natural heritage, effects of experiences in nature on environmental attitudes and behaviour, etc. and on the report “Methodological assessment regarding the diverse conceptualization of multiple values of nature and its benefits, including biodiversity and ecosystem functions and services”[1] of the Intergovernmental science-policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES);
• address various cases such as stakeholders depending on nature and ecosystems for their professional activities, rural communities living in both protected and not protected areas, urban communities having limited contacts with nature, etc.;
• analyse the perception of various stakeholders towards the EU commitment to protect and restore ecosystems. In particular, investigate if the need to protect and restore nature is perceived as a top-down approach or if it is understood as a necessity for the benefit of society. Explore solutions to address such issues;
• drawing on experiences of citizen engagement around the climate transition and biodiversity crisis – such as for instance the Irish Citizen’s Assembly on Biodiversity Loss[2] or local co-creation processes on sustainable transport[3] - pilot citizen engagement (case-studies) around ecosystem protection and restoration possibly with nature-based solutions, with the participation of public authorities who have the competence to implement the results of citizen deliberation, thus creating a pathway to implementation as well as a model for best practice;
• develop approaches for each identified group to enhance the communication and dissemination of knowledge regarding the biodiversity crisis and its implications, including on climate. These strategies should aim to improve the groups' understanding of the benefits of nature restoration and empower them to make informed decisions.

A multi-disciplinary approach involving relevant biodiversity expertise should be sought. In addition, this topic requires the effective contribution of SSH disciplines, including gender studies, and the involvement of SSH experts, institutions as well as the inclusion of relevant SSH expertise, in order to produce meaningful and significant effects enhancing the societal impact of the related research activities.

Proposals should involve public authorities with the legal competence to implement policy in biodiversity and nature restoration in their pilots and in their advisory boards.

Proposals should demonstrate how they will collaborate with or build upon the work of R&I projects from any of the following previous calls and projects: The climate imperative and its impact on democratic governance (HORIZON-CL2-2023-DEMOCRACY-01-05), H2020-SC6-GOVERNANCE-2020, the Green Deal Call – cross-cutting theme on empowering citizens, the projects PHOENIX and REAL DEAL under Horizon Europe Missions.

The possible participation of the JRC in the project could involve the following contributions from the side of the Competence Centre on Participatory and Deliberative Democracy:

• supporting networking activities by invitations to JRC events and the Community of Practice of the Competence Centre on Participatory and Deliberative Democracy;
• capacity building on citizen engagement;
• offering the use of the JRC Makerspace in Ispra, Italy.

Proposals should foresee cooperation with the EC Knowledge Centre for Biodiversity and the Science Service project BioAgora.

International cooperation is encouraged, in particular with Latin American and Caribbean countries.

The use of AI could be considered for the analyses needed under this topic.

[1] https://www.ipbes.net/the-values-assessment.

[2] https://citizensassembly.ie/citizens-assembly-on-biodiversity-loss/.

[3] https://mosaic-mission.eu/pilots/gothenburg.