How can we transform our societies to live in harmony with nature?
On Monday, April 7, 2025, a half-day restitution of the IPBES assessment on Transformative Changes took place. This event, organized by the evaluation technical support unit of the Direction des Programmes Structurants at the University of Montpellier since 2022, presented this report adopted last December at the 11th IPBES plenary in Namibia after three years of intense collaboration with some one hundred international authors.
Following the opening of the event by Philippe Augé, President of the University of Montpellier, the morning was devoted to two round tables featuring authors of the Transformative Change assessment, two authors of the IPBES Nexus report and interdisciplinary researchers from Montpellier.
Round table: "Transformative change is necessary, urgent and difficult, but possible: what strategies?"
The strategies for transformative change developed in the assessment were presented, in connection with the Nexus assessment, highlighting the importance of implementing solutions adapted to their specific contexts, evaluating and readjusting them.
Speakers:
- Sebastian Villasante, coordinating author of chapter 2, researcher in applied economics at the University of Santiago de Compostela (Spain);
- Stephen Woroniecki, Fellow Author of Chapter 3, Head of Research at the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trusts (UK);
- Sandra Luque, principal author of chapter 1 of the Nexus evaluation, research director of exceptional rank at INRAE, within the UMR TETIS in Montpellier;
- Florence Palpacuer, teacher-researcher in management at MOMA, MRM, University of Montpellier ;
- Yves Zinngrebe, coordinating author of Chapter 5, Deputy Head of the Department of Conservation Ecology and Social-Ecological Systems and Head of the Biodiversity and Nature Conservation Governance Working Group at the Helmholtz Center for Environmental Research - UFZ (Germany).
Round table: "Fostering transformative change: roles for all".
Avenues of transformation for sustainable food systems, the role of research in transformative change and knowledge gaps identified in the course of writing the report were presented. The notion of scale in the application of transformative change was mentioned, as well as the importance of synergies between the various players in society.
Speakers:
- Timothée Fouqueray, fellow author of chapter 2, PhD in ecology, IODE, post-doctoraldoctoral student at CNRS (Rennes);
- Fabrice Declerck, coordinating author of chapter 5.3 of the Nexus evaluation, food systems researcher, CGIAR (Montpellier);
- Gabriela Demarchi, researcher in environmental economics, MoISA, CIRAD (Montpellier) ;
- Niki Frantzeskaki, coordinating author of Chapter 4, Professor of Urban Governance at Utrecht University (Netherlands);
- Coline Léandre, in charge of the French IPBES committee at the Foundation for Research on Biodiversity (Montpellier).
Amarys Preuss, IPBES Stakeholder Engagement Officer, gave a presentation on the different ways of taking part in IPBES activities. This was followed by Stephen Woroniecki's feedback on his participation as a "fellow" author.
The words of François Pierrot, Vice-President of International Relations at the University of Montpellier, brought the morning to a close, illustrated on several occasions by Guillaume Monnain's sketches, which summarized the discussions and the event.
