Biodiversity & Ecosystem Services in Impact Assessment: 
Special Symposium organized by the IAIA Biodiversity & Ecology Section

Twenty years after the Convention on Biological Diversity was fi rst drafted, the world continues to see unprecedented loss of species. The implications are largely unknown, but the European Commission estimates that by 2050, economic loss due to loss of ecosystem services will amount to 19 trillion USD.

Compounding the challenge are the silos in which the conservation community and the public and private sectors driving development operate. To better integrate conservation science into planning processes, science and practice need to come together to build capacity in the fi eld of impact assessment.

The aim of this symposium is to bring together practitioners working at the cutting edge with both policy makers responsible for shaping IA frameworks and scientists committed to finding practical ways forward.

The timing could not be better! A growing number of biodiversity initiatives are aimed at creating communities of practice, ranging from cross-sector initiatives across industries to biodiversity working groups comprised of multilateral fi nancial institutions and Equator Principles banks. The challenge is to better understand how to assess biodiversity values, identify dependence on—and impacts to—ecosystem services, design better mitigation strategies following the mitigation hierarchy, effectively monitor changes in biodiversity and ecosystem services over time, and implement adaptive management to manage uncertainties over the long term.