Gaining a fuller understanding of biodiversity

Lately, everyone seems to be talking about Climate Fresk—because of its pioneering methodology and its swift deployment—but attention has increasingly focused on Biodiversity Fresk as well. Created in 2019 and inspired by the playful, collaborative model of its big sister, Biodiversity Fresk is largely based on the reports and findings of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) (generally regarded as biodiversity’s answer to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [IPCC]).

Even if biodiversity is as old as life on Earth itself, it emerged as a concept only in the 1980s, and it continues to receive far less media attention than climate change does. This is largely the result of the fact that the complex challenges of biodiversity are hard to grasp, and vary greatly from one region to another. But in this age of the sixth mass extinction, it is essential to understand the consequences of human activity on living beings and the ecosystems they inhabit in order to better guide strategies and initiatives in favour of the environment.

In this episode of the Raccords podcast, David Roy talks to us about the Biodiversity Fresk. Point of contact for the Fresk in Quebec, he explains how this collaborative, scientific, and “serious” game helps us, through its reliance on collective intelligence, to better understand the systemic dimension of biodiversity loss and its impacts.

“It’s increasingly rare, it seems, to take the time to really sit down and talk about solutions together (…). That’s the beauty of this game, which invites us to enter into a relationship with the other⎯and the living.” David Roy

Photo: Courtesy of David Roy