Providing input on biodiversity to Europe's Environment Ministers

The Swedish Ministry of Environment contacted the Stockholm Resilience Centre to assist with producing the background scientific report, framing the issues so as to move beyond debates on merely conservation and sustainable use, to also include issues of governance and broader resilience perspectives, including notions of ecosystem services.

The Swedish Expert Council of Biodiversity acted as facilitator of the production of the report for the Ministry and contracted the centre to write and coordinate the report. Centre staff Miriam Huitric coordinated a team of researchers, Master's students and partners from the centre network to prepare the report.

Upon completion of the report a scientific meeting was held, inviting experts from the European scientific community to comment on the report. The meeting was held during the days immediately prior to the high level meeting in Strömstad.

At the closing of the meeting a statement was issued stating the endorsement of the report by the scientific representatives present.

The report fed into the meeting of the ministers and formed the basis for several of the recommendations that emerged as outcomes from the meeting. At the conclusion of the high-level meeting the Ministers also produced a joint statement on the suggested European position vis-à-vis the global process of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) CBD. The final statement was named "The Strömstad Consensus".

Centre research and scientific coordination thus fed directly into both a joint scientific statement on biodiversity and governance and provided the basis from which several of the recommendations in the "Strömstad Consensus" was drafted.