Biodiversity: Visions and Strategies — Six Visions for Preserving Biodiversity to 2050

As part of the series on the oceans, seas and coasts launched in July-August 2020, biologist Gilles Boeuf alerted us in our previous issue (no. 440, Jan-Feb 2021) to the importance of marine biodiversity and the risks it faces from climate change. Continuing that series and following on from the warning from Gilles Boeuf, this article by Benoît Labbouz, Sarah Lumbroso, Isabelle Vial and Denis Lacroix presents the lessons learned from a 2020 foresight exercise on the preservation of biodiversity to 2050, within the framework of a research/action project on which the French Office for Biodiversity combined with AgroParisTech. Six visions of the state and management of biodiversity in metropolitan France up to 2050 were constructed and are played out here for our series, as a way of specifically addressing marine biodiversity issues. This article reviews elements of the framing of the problem and the methodology. It goes on to outline these six visions and a first series of lessons drawn from them. These represent a challenge for actors in the environmental field with regard to the concerns to be considered and the available options and levers for improving the state of biodiversity.