BIONEXT newsletter – May 2025

Editorial: Embracing One Health for a Resilient Future

As humanity grapples with escalating environmental crises, the need for integrated solutions becomes paramount. Thus, this newsletter underscores a clear message: siloed approaches to health and environmental governance are no longer viable. Central to this realization is the One Health paradigm, a framework that acknowledges the interdependence of human, animal, and ecosystem health.

The Insight article “From forests to pharmacies: how biodiversity shapes global health” vividly illustrates the transformative potential of One Health. It shows how dialogue between modelers and health experts fosters shared understanding—a necessary step in developing truly interdisciplinary solutions. The COVID-19 pandemic spotlighted the dangers of ignoring these links, reinforcing the urgency for systemic thinking and collaborative action.

One Health is not just a scientific framework; it is a call to redesign how we perceive and protect life on Earth. By merging scientific rigor with empathy for all forms of life, it offers a sustainable roadmap for health equity in a rapidly changing world.

I wish you a good read of the newsletter, full of inspiring contributions from the BIONEXT project.

Hans Keune is an associate professor at the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences at the University of Antwerp. In BIONEXT, he represents the human health perspective and contributes decision-support expertise.

Main findings, results and recommendations

This section presents the main findings, results and recommendations from the project over the last six months.

• During BIONEXT Workshop 1, we began the process of enriching the European Shared Socio-economic Pathways with considerations of biodiversity and nature using a nexus approach. Since then, we have conducted a systems analysis to compare the dominant interactions between nexus elements and indirect drivers between the original and enriched European-SSP narratives. Our findings show that introducing consideration of biodiversity altered the system dynamics within the European-SSP narratives considerably, with outcomes for biodiversity ranging widely. Furthermore, the relative significance of indirect drivers changed across SSPs due to novel feedbacks with biodiversity and other sectors. Our findings have important implications for biodiversity governance and offer more ‘biodiversity-centric’ scenarios to the climate research community.

• We have also produced a detailed analysis of seventy-four European Union (EU) binding and non-binding instruments relating to the nexus of biodiversity, climate, energy, water, food, transport, and health (the nexus). The analysis identifies key features of those instruments, including the extent to which they recognise and act on different nexus elements, and allows for comparison across temporality, instrument type and thematic area, among others.

Engage with us

Event: Mainstreaming biodiversity in policymaking – June 5, 2025

Welcome to Mainstreaming biodiversity in policymaking -event June 5! The session will provide a platform for policymakers, businesses, and researchers to explore the integration and mainstreaming of biodiversity into local and regional policymaking within the EU, and on strategies for reducing the EU’s global biodiversity footprint.

Learn more

Insight article | From forests to pharmacies: how biodiversity shapes global health

Health is often thought of in terms of human health and our well-being, but from a systemic perspective, the health of humans, animals, plants, and ecosystems is deeply interconnected and mutually dependent. This idea is adopted within the "One Health" approach. But what is One Health and why should we care about it?

Interview | Towards a Nature-Centred Future – The Role of Businesses

To explore the role of businesses in combating biodiversity loss, we spoke with three experts who are engaged in the business world, to hear their perspectives on the future and the vital role businesses play in shaping it.

Blog | Taking stock of the diversity of bottom-up biodiversity action

To deepen the understanding of the making of transformative change, we in the BIONEXT project have studied the options for change that evolve through bottom-up action.

In the spotlight: health

In every newsletter, we give a spotlight on one element from the biodiversity nexus. For the fifth newsletter, we introduce health.

Needless to say, health is the ultimate cornerstone of human life. However, it is only one of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): “Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages”. Central to this aspiration lies the attempt to achieve universal health coverage (UHC) and equitable access to quality health care. The principle of leaving no one behind underscores the pivotal role of universal health coverage, anchoring it at the heart of SDG 3 and linking it intricately with other SDG objectives.

According to the World Health Organization, achieving SDG 3 will depend on progress in other SDGs – e.g., poverty reduction; education; nutrition; gender equality; clean water and sanitation, sustainable energy, and safer cities.

News from other projects

BioValue final event

Over these three years, BioValue has worked to promote transformative change in spatial planning to better integrate and value biodiversity across governance levels. This final conference is the moment where we bring together the project’s main findings, tools, and recommendations — and open the discussion to a broader audience of planners, researchers, and policy professionals.