Our mission is to contribute to reversing biodiversity loss.

Our mission is to contribute to reversing biodiversity loss. This requires actions in several areas at the same time, to preserve healthy ecosystems, restore degraded ecosystems, promote sustainable use of biodiversity and stop the causes of its deterioration.

The complexity of environmental challenges demands that we act in several scenarios at the same time, establishing strategic alliances and bridges with science, private initiative and society as a whole.

Conservation and restoration of ecosystems and sustainable use of natural resources

Biodiversity is the basis for human well-being and prosperity.

The goods and services provided by ecosystems, such as regulating the climate, providing us with food, clean water, medicine, clothing, fuel, shelter and energy, are the basis on which societies and their economies are built. We depend on nature for our well-being and health as well as for the development of economic activities.

However, the number of species and healthy ecosystems are declining at an accelerating rate due to human activity. The way we produce and consume has had serious consequences, such as overexploitation of resources, pollution, climate change, changes in land use and the proliferation of invasive alien species.

Facing environmental challenges therefore requires changing this model, and for this it is necessary to rethink our relationship with nature. To do so, in fact, reinforcing the role of nature is part of the solution. Healthy and resilient ecosystems and a firm commitment to nature-based solutions are essential to build a society that takes into account the sustainable use of resources, the resilience of our ecosystems and a low-carbon and inclusive economy.

In this context, the Biodiversity Foundation has developed the following lines of action:

  • Conservation and restoration of marine ecosystems and promotion of the blue economy and employment.

  • Conservation and restoration of terrestrial ecosystems and promotion of the bioeconomy and green jobs.

  • Renaturalization and resilience of cities.

Fight against the causes of biodiversity loss

In response to the need to adopt measures to halt the drivers of biodiversity loss, such as climate change, pollution, overexploitation of resources and changes in land use, actions have been launched in the following areas:

  • Climate change. Climate change and biodiversity loss are closely related processes. On the one hand, climate change is one of the main causes of biodiversity loss. On the other hand, healthy ecosystems are essential to confront climate change, both from the point of view of mitigation, due to their capacity to absorb CO2, and from the point of view of adaptation. In fact, solutions based on the services provided by ecosystems (nature-based solutions) are highly cost-effective and efficient for this purpose. For example, the conservation of vegetation cover in the headwaters of basins is an effective measure to encourage rainwater infiltration, thus improving the ecosystem service of water provision and the prevention of landslides, erosion and flooding.

  • Circular economy and lifestyle changes to favor the conservation and recovery of nature and promote the ecological and fair transition. We know that we have to urgently modify the production and consumption model. This paradigm shift implies important structural changes and also a change in culture, mentality, behavior and values.

Strategic alliances and work with partners

The involvement of all actors is essential on the path towards ecological transition. Public authorities must provide the regulatory framework and the impulse that society needs to transform positive attitudes towards nature into real behaviors that preserve it, but it is also required:

  • Promote the creation of bridges with research and the generation of knowledge for biodiversity management; respond to the need to base biodiversity management on the best available science.

  • Encourage the private sector’s contribution to the ecological transition, by identifying innovative solutions, promoting behavioral changes, driving transformations in direct operations and in its value chain, and through forward-looking commitments that stimulate concrete and positive actions for nature to halt biodiversity loss and climate change.

“Our past, our present, and whatever remains of our future, absolutely depend on what we do now”

Sylvia Earle