A chair dedicated to biodiversity issues
The Biodiversity and Climate Change Chair of the Rennes 1 Foundation aims to identify and understand the role of biodiversity in the resilience and adaptation to climate change of human activities. It is led by Joan van Baaren, Director of the UMR ECOBIO Ecosystems, Biodiversity, Evolution of the University of Rennes 1 and member of the Breton High Council on Climate.
Impacted by human activities and climate change for more than half a century, biodiversity is involved in many functions: food production through pollination, the quality of the air and the water thanks to the purifying faculties of the plant species, the landscapes and the natural patrimonies sources of attractiveness and well-being. While global biodiversity conservation goals are far from being achieved, solutions can be developed locally through the appropriation by all socio-economic actors of knowledge about biodiversity and its services.
In this context, the work of the Biodiversity and Climate Change Chair is organized in three parts:
-DECRIPT through retrospective study of the effects of past climate change and analyze the risks and threats related to current climate change on biodiversity.
-EXPERIMENT with resilience solutions and/or scenarios including biodiversity to limit the impact of climate change on our anthropized ecosystems, including the enrichment of plant biodiversity in urban, agricultural or forest environments.
-RECOMMEND efficient management policies.
The Roullier Endowment Fund partner of the Chair
The implementation of the objectives of the Biodiversity and Climate Change Chair will be carried out thanks to the existing scientific expertise in the research laboratories of the University of Rennes 1 involved, as well as with the support of five partner companies: the Roullier Endowment Fund, Veolia, Samsic, OKwind and Giboire.
Aware that climate change is already changing production conditions for the agricultural sector, the Roullier Endowment Fund has chosen to get involved with the Biodiversity and Climate Change Chair in order to support research on the analysis of changes affecting biodiversity, from soil to landscapes. This work will help develop new solutions to mitigate the changes at work or allow French agriculture to adapt to them. Experimenting with new models is essential to enable agriculture to be productive by contributing to the sustainable management of biodiversity and natural resources.
Discover the others projects of the Roullier Endowment Fund