Biodiversity and Sustainable Land Use (LAND)

In the research group Biodiversity and Sustainable Land Use, we integrate diverse perspectives and disciplines to address the complexities of land use decisions and their impacts on biodiversity and livelihoods. With our research we strive to improve coordination among land use priorities, political sectors and visions of a good life. This includes research on global crises such as biodiversity loss, unsustainable agricultural practices, deforestation, climate change, infrastructure expansion and zoonotic diseases as well as potential solutions to meet these challenges such as land use policies, certification, conservation planning, nature-based solutions and bioeconomic transformation. In this context we also explore the role of Science Policy Interfaces (SPIs) in shaping land policies and their capacity to navigate synergies and conflicts between land use priorities such as biodiversity conservation and food security.

In our research, we emphasize the necessity of stakeholder engagement and foster a research that considers dimensions of ethics, intersectionality and decoloniality. To this end, we explore different quantitative and qualitative methodological approaches as well as their combination for stakeholder engagement, participatory research, scenario development and modelling. Our aim is to contribute significantly to informed decision-making that considers synergies and conflicts and fosters sustainable development.