An international center of competence for integrated nature conservation and sustainable development is envisaged for Frankfurt am Main. The Institute for Social-Ecological Research (ISOE) is a founding partner of the Frankfurt Conservation Center (FCC) which is to be established on the site of Frankfurt Zoo. As an independent institution, the FCC will contribute to the long-term preservation of the Earth system with all its biological diversity. To this end, leading organizations and institutions from practice and science are networking under the chairmanship of Frankfurt Zoological Society, Senckenberg Society for Nature Research and Goethe University Frankfurt am Main.
A lot is at stake and hence the following questions arise: How can climate and nature be protected more effectively? How can habitats be preserved and ecosystem services maintained? How to bend the curve of the global biodiversity loss? At the planned Frankfurt Conservation Center, stakeholders from various disciplines will pool their knowledge and work together to find answers to these pressing questions. The FCC is also intended to strengthen Frankfurt am Main as a research and science location.
As a founding partner of the international competence center, ISOE is contributing its expertise in social-ecological biodiversity research and transdisciplinary approaches. That way, the Frankfurt Conservation Center aims to promote the dialogue on possible integrated solutions for the protection of biodiversity and ecosystem services. ISOE has expertise on analysing causes and consequences of human activities on habitats. Bringing in this experience, the research at FCC will be able to find solutions to preserve and restore future biodiversity.
International expertise in social-ecological biodiversity research
ISOE's social-ecological biodiversity research is specifically dedicated to the societal causes of the loss of species with the objective to deal with the following questions: What role do the values and norms of different societal groups play? To what extent do they inhibit or promote species protection? In which areas does biodiversity protection compete with other political goals? Here, one of the guiding principles of ISOE’s research is to integrate biodiversity protection more strongly than before into regional and global economic activities and to include the fact that it must also be reflected in individual action, i.e. in one's own everyday practices.
ISOE's research offers new concepts, scientific tools and specific recommendations for action to reverse the trend of biodiversity loss. The institute is a partner in the European biodiversity network Alternet and has for many years been involved in international projects, which took place in Namibia and Mongolia among others. The team of ISOE's research unit Biodiversity and People, headed by Marion Mehring, is pleased to be able to contribute its social-ecological expertise to the international competence center.
More about the Frankfurt Conservation Center (FCC)
In addition to experts from science and nature conservation, representatives from civil society, business and politics are also involved in the work of the international center. Local or indigenous knowledge from the project regions will play an important role in the center’s work and will be incorporated into solutions geared towards nature and species conservation. The partners are Frankfurt Zoological Society, Senckenberg Society for Nature Research, Goethe University Frankfurt am Main, Institute for Social-Ecological Research, Conservation International, the KfW Foundation, Nature Trust Alliance, TRAFFIC, BioFrankfurt network, KPMG and Frankfurt Zoo.
frankfurtconservation.org
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