NFDI4Biodiversity at the German Nature Conservation Day 2024 in Saarbrücken

Data as a basis: At the German Nature Conservation Conference 2024 in Saarbrücken, it once again became clear how important access to reliable, quality-assured data is for nature conservation.

We need a new Krefeld study! That was the consensus at the introductory event of the 37th German Nature Conservation Day 2024, which took place in Saarbrücken from September 26 to 28. Our response: A new Krefeld study requires reliable data above all else.

In 2017, the Entomological Association Krefeld caused a sensation with a publication on the decline in insects ("More than 75 percent decline over 27 years in total flying insect biomass in protected areas") and brought the discourse on the biodiversity crisis into society. The association had analyzed 27 years of data and identified an alarming downward trend in insect biomass. The desire for a second Krefeld study arose from the aim of once again raising awareness in society that the biodiversity crisis and species extinction are continuing. A trend that has now also been confirmed by the "Biodiversity Fact Check" produced by the Research Initiative for the Conservation of Biodiversity (FEdA).

Data is essential to enable such studies that allow an objective assessment of the state of biodiversity. The need for data as a basis for decisions in nature conservation became clear at the German Nature Conservation Day 2024. Interesting discussions on this topic broke out at our stand: How can we enable data held by various offices, authorities, researchers and companies to be brought together and used as a basis for data? How can the quality of this data be ensured? How can we use existing structures and workflows?

We were able to continue the discussions in our barcamp session “Data diversity for biodiversity” on the second day of the event. The challenges quickly became clear: few standardized processes, little to no resources for providing data. At the same time, the use of existing data is becoming increasingly present due to the decline in experts and stricter legal requirements.

So what can we do? The discussions show us that our work, the mobilization of data from a wide variety of sources and the bringing together of experts with different backgrounds is more important than ever. In particular, the availability of existing up-to-date data is becoming increasingly important in times of facilitating the expansion of renewable energy, as authorities can only act “on the basis of existing data” when it comes to ordering measures (§ 6 WindBG - Einzelnorm).

There are still so many unused and urgently needed data treasures – the Nature Conservation Day has once again made us aware of this. Perhaps we will be able to make one or two of them accessible together.