The challenges relating to biodiversity loss, food insecurity and climate change show the urgent need to make transition towards sustainable food systems in West Africa. To bring about such a transition worldwide, the United Nations’ Food Systems Summit was held in September 2021. One of the main outcomes of the Summit was the national pathways to sustainable food systems. This review analyses whether and how agro-biodiversity is addressed in the food system transformation pathways submitted by West African countries in the framework of the Summit.

Climate change and other anthropogenic threats are increasingly imperilling the diverse biomes of Central Africa, which are globally important for biodiversity, carbon storage and people's livelihoods. The objectives of this paper were to: (i) map the vulnerability of 100 socio-ecologically important priority tree species in Central Africa to climate change, fire, habitat conversion, overexploitation, overgrazing and (ii) propose a spatially explicit strategy to guide restoration and conservation actions.

As the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration begins, there remains insufficient emphasis on the human and social dimensions of restoration. The potential that restoration holds for achieving both ecological and social goals can only be met through a shift toward people-centered restoration strategies. Toward this end, this paper synthesizes critical insights from a special issue on “Restoration for whom, by whom” to propose actionable ways to center humans and social dimensions in ecosystem restoration, with the aim of generating fair and sustainable initiatives.

Smallholder farmers who grow maize landraces face important challenges to preserve their seed biodiversity from one season to another. This study was carried out in the central highlands of Mexico to compare the effectiveness of two seed storage practices—specifically, polypropylene woven bags (farmers’ conventional practice) vs. hermetic containers—for minimizing seed losses and maintaining germination. Four Mexican landraces were stored for three and six months. Data on moisture content and kernel damage were collected at the beginning and the end of the storage period.

A river basin – the breadbasket of millions – battered by floods just a few months earlier, slowly dries up; struck by climate change, over-abstraction of water and degradation of soils and land. As the river flow and reservoir levels fall, hydropower production declines. Farmers start to rely more heavily on groundwater, but access to energy for their irrigation wells is expensive. Many, especially women, are without access and a voice; others pump too much and ratchet up the water stress of the whole basin. Soils turn to dust, crops wilt, livestock and wildlife perish.

Armenia is a landlocked country in the South Caucasus. After gaining independence from the former Soviet Union, a very difficult socio- economic situation developed in Armenia, with a current high level of poverty. Land privatization has led to excessive land fragmentation and a small average farm size. Most of the country (87 percent) is mountainous with a vertical zonation of diverse landscapes. Armenia is hotspot of biodiversity in the region, facing human and climate induced land degradation. Water erosion affects most forest and croplands across the country.

Companies in the business of selling farmland to billionaires and pension funds are peddling it as a green;sustainable and socially responsible investment. This propaganda is working. The digital land records and massive quantities of data that big tech companies like Microsoft and Amazon are vacuuming up from farmersfields make it easier for the companies to scour the planet for profitable farmland deals. They can also use satellite technologies and drones to monitor their farms from a distance. But the world’s farmland is finite.

Ce rapport de synthèse fournit un aperçu de haut niveau des principaux thèmes abordés dans les Lignes directrices sur l’atténuation des impacts des projets d’énergie solaire et éolienne sur la biodiversi-té, publiées en 2021. Celles-ci visent à fournir un soutien pratique aux projets d’énergie solaire et éolienne, afin de gérer efficacement les risques et améliorer les résultats en matière de bio-diversité et de services écosystémiques.

Woodland expansion on a significant scale is widely seen to be critical if governments are to achieve their net zero greenhouse gas ambitions. The United Kingdom government is committed to expanding tree cover from 13% to at least 17% in order to achieve net zero by 2050. With much lowland area under agricultural production, woodland expansion may be directed to upland areas, many of which are national parks under some degree of conservation jurisdiction.

Although renewable energy holds great promise in mitigating climate change, there are socioeconomic and ecological tradeoffs related to each form of renewable energy. Forest-related bioenergy is especially controversial, because tree plantations often replace land that could be used to grow food crops and can have negative impacts on biodiversity.

This paper explores the role of the global food system as the principal driver of accelerating biodiversity loss. It explains how food production is degrading or destroying natural habitats and contributing to species extinction. The paper outlines the challenges and trade-offs involved in redesigning food systems to restore biodiversity and/or prevent further biodiversity loss, and presents recommendations for action. The paper introduces three ‘levers’ for reducing pressures on land and creating a more sustainable food system.