Context:

The Report provides a critical evaluation of evidence on the interlinkages between biodiversity loss, water availability and quality, food insecurity, health risks and climate change - the five elements of the Nexus. It puts forward a “nexus approach” whereby the different crises should not be addressed in isolation, since challenges within each element are interconnected with other elements across multiple spatial and temporal scales. A better understanding of these interconnections enables the identification of opportunities for collaboration across sectors and scales and contributes to synergistic and holistic management and governance.

Key messages:

·       Biodiversity’s worldwide decline is negatively impacting ecosystem functioning, water availability and quality, food security and nutrition, human health and resilience to climate change.

·       Biodiversity loss and climate change are interdependent and produce compounding impacts.

·       Policy decisions that prioritise short-term benefits lead to unequal human well-being outcomes. Existing governance approaches have often failed to address these negative impacts

·       Business as usual will result in substantial negative outcomes for biodiversity, water availability and quality, food security and human health, while exacerbating climate change.

·       Policy that prioritise objectives for a single element of the nexus without will result in trade-offs across the nexus

·       Maximising positive outcomes for all element of the nexus simultaneously is not feasible, but several options exist to achieve balanced benefits across the nexus elements

·       Increased food production improved health through greater caloric intake; however, unsustainable agricultural practices that contributed to that increase also caused biodiversity loss, unsustainable water usage, reduced food diversity and quality, and increased pollution and GHG emissions

·       The transaction to a more efficient, inclusive, resilient and sustainable food systems would deliver multiple benefits to the nexus elements and would help countries address land conversion and unsustainable agricultural practices that have led to environmental degradation, biodiversity loss, and health risks. Conversely, approaches that focus on prioritising food production only will generate negative trade off on other elements of the nexus.

·       71 response options have been identified that address nexus interactions. When implemented at appropriate scales and contexts, they provide numerous benefits to different nexus elements

·       Many of the identified response options are low cost, including agroecology, integrated multi-trophic aquaculture, ecological intensification of agriculture

·       These response options support the achievement of the SDGs, the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework Goals, and the Paris Agreement’s long-term goals for mitigation and adaptation$1.

·       Efficient water use in agriculture, shift to more sustainable heathy diets, integrated landscape and seascape management would deliver benefits to all element of the nexus

·       Gaps in finance to meet biodiversity needs are $0.3–1 trillion per year, and additional investment needed to meet the Sustainable Development Goals most directly related to water, food, health and climate are at least $4 trillion per year. Urgent action to address the dominance of a narrow set of interests within economic and financial systems is needed