Abstract
Because drivers and pressures on biodiversity, societal expectations, and ecological knowledge evolve rapidly, biodiversity conservation policies need to adapt continuously. Anticipating such changes can however be difficult given the profusion and complexity of data and when signals indicating future risks and opportunities may be weak. To tackle this challenge, the French Environment ministry asked a research team at AgroParisTech to develop a new method for identifying emerging issues for biodiversity policies by 2020 in France (except for overseas territories). This project, called BioPIQuE 2013, involved both scientists and stakeholders in an interdisciplinary assessment. As a result, 25 emerging issues were identified, among which 10 issues were highlighted for their strategic interest. A majority of these issues are current trends not yet taken into account by biodiversity policies (such as “why do we have to and how can we improve our ability to restore – with ambitious biodiversity objectives – urbanised and highly degraded areas?”), and a few of them are weak signals (such as “how can we deal with trade-offs and conflicts between biodiversity policies and other environmental policies?”). All stakeholders, including researchers, NGOs, public administrations, private companies and politicians, can find in the results some inputs for developing their biodiversity conservation strategies.