IPBES launched NEXUS report on the Interlinkages Among Biodiversity, Water, Food and Health

On a Kenyan lake

A landmark new report was launched on December 17, 2024 by the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES).

The Assessment Report on the Interlinkages Among Biodiversity, Water, Food and Health – known as the Nexus Report - offers decision-makers around the world the most ambitious scientific assessment ever undertaken of these complex interconnections and explores more than five dozen specific response options to maximize co-benefits across five ‘nexus elements’: biodiversity, water, food, health and climate change.

Find a summary of the report here.

Approved on Monday by the 11th session of the IPBES Plenary, composed of representatives of the 147 Governments that are members of IPBES, the report is the product of three years of work by 165 leading international experts from 57 countries from all regions of the world. 

It finds that existing actions to address these challenges fail to tackle the complexity of interlinked problems and result in inconsistent governance.

ZEF senior researcher and junior-professor at Bonn University Lisa Biber-Freudenberger is lead-author of two of the report's chapters (chapter 2 and chapter 7). 

Lisa Biber-Freudenberg: 

“The consideration of mutually reinforcing trends in the five nexus elements examined, biodiversity, climate, health, food and water by decision-makers is essential for achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Decisions must not be made in political silos”.