The construction of biodiversity as a political and scientific problem

Abstract

Drawing on an on-going survey, we examine the construction of biodiversity as a public problem, in the field of both science and policy and, more precisely, as a problem of interface between science and policy. In the first part, we give an overview of the process, from the invention of the term of biodiversity in the mid 1980s to the very recent decision (June 2010) to create a structure responsible for the global governance of biodiversity, the International Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (Ipbes). We suggest to divide this process into three stages and underline the role of scientists in it. The second part deals with the relations between the researchers' participation in defining biodiversity as a public problem and the transformations of their professional practices and identities. We show that the development of biodiversity studies goes along with the modernisation of natural sciences, the rise of a discourse about environmental urgency and increasing relations with the economic and financial world.