Summary of session 3:

Having acknowledged that biodiversity is declining, and that biodiversity is essential for the survival of our species, Martin Sharman discussed biodiversity loss as a measure of sustainability concluding that the only way to halt that loss would be to change humans' attitudes from growth to sustainability. Allan Watt suggested that a way to monitor that biodiversity loss was to improve our knowledge about human attitudes and the drivers of biodiversity loss. In order to achieve this, collaboration and more importantly integration is needed between researchers working on the biological and socio-economic drivers of biodiversity loss to reach an integrated framework. A method to achieve better multidisciplinary integration could be the workshops suggested by Sandra Bell. She describes a pilot project where both types of scientists get together and carry out a project with the goal of achieving interdisciplinary understanding. However, Caspian Richards emphasized the need for a wider scope than simply the academic community for people to recognise for themselves the intrinsic value of biodiversity. Only by working with natural and social scientists as well as people outside the research community, can we have a better understanding of attitudes towards nature. With reference to marine ecosystems, Christos Arvanitidis and Anastasios Eleftheriou added that knowledge alone might not be enough and that policy changes regarding energy production and sustainable economy might be more powerful at the EU level.

On the issue of how science can contribute to governance, Martin Sharman emphasised the difficulties linked to differences between policy makers, who need quick, if incomplete information, and scientists, who work to reduce ambiguity as much as possible using long-term research. Josef Settele suggested that in order to give more than an educated guess when advising on policy, and to be less biased, a "best practice manual" could be to ask scientists working in a related field to submit joint statements to policy makers. Rainer Muessner agreed with the fact that scientists should give policy makers a quick answer (if a little shaky) rather than no answer at all in order to stay "in the game". However, he was more reserved about the idea of a "best practice manual" and argued that this manual might be overshooting the mark when advising on policy. Katalin Torok added that non-policy relevant research should also be carried out, and that the solution was to improve communication and understanding between policy makers and scientists by involving young experts more. Marina Michaelidou agreed with this statement and added that both cultural and biological aspects had to be considered when trying to implement sustainable approaches.

A few practical ways of promoting sustainability included the description of: distributed economies by Allan Johansson, sustainable reserves by Alpina Begossi and population models and Ecological Risk Assessments by Yiannis Matsinos. Alan Feest also mentioned the possibility of considering risk analysis and hierarchies of probability, but concentrated more on the idea of encouraging scientists to conduct their research in view of decision-making. Finally, Konstantinos Hatzidakis discussed the move towards the promotion of environmental protection for increased development and illustrated this point by looking at local development, eco-tourism, the Structural Funds programmes and Cohesion Fund projects. He also emphasizes the need for a radical change in mentality regarding the real value of natural resources conservation, especially in Southern European states.