On this day in 2020, the European Commission’s Knowledge Centre for Biodiversity was launched at the Green Week, which means that today the KCBD celebrates its first anniversary!

Since its humble beginnings, the KCBD has doubled its team, multiplied its network of collaborators, co-organized its first workshop and engaged with various policy DGs (the last one is INTPA, who recently joined the KCBD Steering Board).

As a key element to the success of the EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030, the KCBD has a mandate to:

1. Track and assess progress of the EU Biodiversity Strategy and biodiversity related international instruments;
2. Foster cooperation and partnership by supporting  dialogue and coordination of communication across EC services; and
3. Underpin policy development, by translating scientific information and enhancing the policy coherence of sectors and biodiversity.

In line with these objectives, the KCBD website has started to be populated with curated content, a new glossary and a biodiversity-focused local taxonomy  to tag KCBD resources in addition to the global Digital European Thesaurus. The first thematic section on ‘Biodiversity & Health’ was developed as a pilot. A thematic section on nature-based solutions has been also developed; and four other topics: biodiversity & agriculture, global biodiversity, biodiversity & trade and biodiversity & finance are in final stages of development. Also, a page has been created to facilitate access to biodiversity funding. The KCBD website is expected to undergo major developments in the coming months.

Progress has also been achieved supporting dialogue and coordination across EU services, with the KCBD Forum planned to be launched in November 2021. The Forum will consist on technical ad hoc groups with clear policy links aiming to mainstream biodiversity across sectors. Stay tuned to know more about the forthcoming “biodiversity & finance” ad hoc group.

Working together with other EU bodies, the KCBD is underpinning policy development and implementation, for example through the compilation of indicators, and the development of custom tools such as the Biodiversity Strategy Dashboard, the Biodiversity Strategy Actions Tracker and the forthcoming EU research - policy link EXPLORER which should all become publicly available by the end of the year.

In the global sphere, the KCBD will contribute to the monitoring of the Global Biodiversity Framework for 2030. Among the many activities, KCBD is promoting a transparent and inclusive Global Knowledge Platform for Biodiversity.

As we look ahead, there is still a long way to go. In the years to come, the KCBD will continue to bridge its know-how and experience with other knowledge (re)sources, and together pave the way towards the coherent implementation of the EU Biodiversity Strategy and the achievement of the 2050 vision.