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Join us for the Spotlight on Managing the Biodiversity Crisis

  • 1.  Join us for the Spotlight on Managing the Biodiversity Crisis

    Posted 15 days ago

    Spotlight:

    Organizing for or against extinction?

    Managing the biodiversity crisis

    24th of March 2025

    at Rennes School of Business

     

     

    Biodiversity loss is among the most pressing global environmental problems. Conservation scientists diagnose a "sixth mass extinction" in the Anthropocene, with extinction rates surpassing the background extinction rates of the last millennia multifold. Biological diversity loss is among the planetary boundaries that are most dangerously overreached. Biodiversity loss is critical since it disturbs trophic chains and ecosystems and keeps future generations from reaping benefits and enjoying ecosystem services from biodiverse regions.

    Among the underlying causes driving species extinction are habitat loss and fragmentation, climate change, overhunting, extractive industries and infrastructure development, invasive species, and transferable diseases. This also indicates that there are many policy options to counter the trends towards mass extinction. While the international, multilateral forum on the issue, the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), has set far-reaching goals for terrestrial and marine biodiversity protection in its 2022 Kunming-Montreal Protocol, there is a lack of decisive action on the issue in most if not all member states.

     

    Our Spotlight on Managing the Biodiversity Crisis invites leading experts and practitioners to discuss problems of biodiversity loss, the governance of conservation, and practical real-world management solutions.

     


    Contributions are made by:

     

    Jan Bebbington is the Director of the Pentland Centre for Sustainability in Business at Lancaster University (UK) with a longstanding track record of research and publication on topics such as: the Sustainable Development Goals, motivations and rationales for non-financial reporting; carbon accounting; and sustainability assessment. Jan's most recent work focuses on the intersection between corporate and capital market activities and nature/biodiversity concerns. As part of that she is involved in a long-term collaboration between ecologists and sustainability scientists (at the Stockholm Resilience Centre and The Centre of Ocean Solutions at Stanford University) that provides knowledge to a practice-based cohort of seafood companies who are seeking to actively contribute to ocean stewardship (focusing on SDG 14 – Life Below the Water).

     

    Cyrlene Claasen is a professor in corporate responsibility and sustainability, currently serving as a professor at Rennes School of Business. Her work has made contributions to understanding the intricate relationship between corporations, society, and the environment. Cyrlene is also deeply engaged in research on the links between conservation, law, and the trophy hunting industry in Namibia. This controversial subject intersects with national and international debates on biodiversity conservation, ethical tourism, and legal frameworks. Her work critically examines the role of trophy hunting in supporting or undermining conservation efforts, as well as the legal mechanisms that regulate this industry. By addressing these sensitive issues, she contributes to the global discourse on sustainable wildlife management and the ethical dilemmas it presents.

     

    Andy Dobson is professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at Princeton University. His research is concerned with the ecology of wildlife diseases (particularly zoonosis), their interaction with the social systems of carnivores and primates, and the conservation of biodiversity. He has studied infectious diseases in a variety of endangered and fragile ecosystems, including the Serengeti in East Africa, Yellowstone National Park in the US, the forests of Panama, the coastal salt marshes and grasslands of California and the birds that visit the feeder in his backyard. He is writing a series of books explaining the ecology and biology of these places as complex interactive systems. He is an associated faculty member at the High Meadows Environmental Institute and the Santa Fe Institute.

     

    Bettina König is Head of the Section of "Sustainability Management in the International Food Industry" at the Faculty of Organic Agricultural Sciences at the University of Kassel since April 2023. The agricultural scientist was previously a research group leader at the Humboldt University in Berlin and a project leader at the University for Sustainable Development in Eberswalde. She contributed to establishing interdisciplinary institutes at both universities - the IRI THESys (Integrative Research Institute on Transformations of Human-Environment Systems) and the Research Centre Sustainability-Transformation-Transfer. She received her doctorate at the Humboldt University in Berlin on "Obstacles to the conversion of vegetable farms to organic farming methods" and subsequently conducted interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research on sustainability innovations in national and international contexts at various stations.

     

    Sören Köpke is 2024-2025 FIAS Fellow at the Centre for Unframed Thinking, Rennes School of Business. He holds a Ph.D. in political science awarded by Technical University of Braunschweig in 2018 and is a research associate and lecturer at the Faculty for Organic Agricultural Sciences, University of Kassel, Germany. His current research interests lie in conservation governance and wildlife management, in agricultural development policy, and in water politics.

     

    Helen Kopnina (Ph.D. Cambridge University, 2002) is the author of over two hundred peer-reviewed articles and (co)author and (co)editor of seventeen books on interrelated topics of environmental sustainability, circular economy, biological conservation, environmental ethics and animal ethics, and environmental education.

     

    Agenda

     

    Central European Time

    Program item

    9:45h

    Housekeeping and welcome from the organization committee

    10:00h

    Keynote Speech: Dr. Helen KOPNINA, Northumbria University, UK: Biodiversity and Business: Tensions and Opportunities

    11:30h

    Panel presentation:

    Dr. Cyrlene CLAASEN (Rennes School of Business): "Investigating the merging of conservation with trophy hunting – The Namibian Discourse"

    Dr. Sören KÖPKE (FIAS Research Fellow, Rennes School of Business/ University of Kassel, Germany): "A paradise for wildlife" – State-led conservation governance of protected areas in the Western Ghats, Karnataka, India

    13:00h

    Lunch break

    14:00h

    Panel discussion: Managing the biodiversity crisis? Solutions from Science and the private sector.

    • Prof. Dr. Bettina KÖNIG, Chair, Sustainability Management in the international agri-food industry, University of Kassel, Germany
    • Prof. Jan BEBBINGTON, The Rubin Chair in Sustainability in Business, Director of the Pentland Centre, Lancaster School of Management, UK

    Industry representatives (to be announced)

    16:00h

    Closing keynote speech: Andy DOBSON, Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Princeton University, USA : Why we need to safeguard biodiversity in an accelerating crisis of extinction

    17:30h

    End of program

     

    You can join us in person at Rennes School of Business in Lecturer Hall 1.2 under the following address:

    2, rue Robert d'Arbrissel

    35000 Rennes

     

    You can also join us online.

     

    Please register under: https://forms.office.com/e/Q23zrt1GQv until 14th of March 2025

     

    This event of the Center of Unframed Thinking at Rennes School of Business is supported by the Region of Brittany and the City of Rennes.

     

     

    Kind regards / Bien cordialement,

     

     

     

     

    Julia ROLOFF

    Full Professor

    Management & Organization Department

    Tel.: +33 (0)2 99 33 48 30

     

     

     

     

     

    RENNES SCHOOL OF BUSINESS

    2, RUE ROBERT D'ARBRISSEL - CS 76522

    35065 RENNES CEDEX - FRANCE

    Tel: +33(2) 99 54 63 63

    rennes-sb.com