Commitments_GBF_HelmholtzEarthAndEnvironment_2026.pdf
 Commitment from the Helmholtz Research Field Earth and Environment towards the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework

The Helmholtz Association of German Research Centers is Germany's largest research organization. With 18 centers, around 46,000 employees, and an annual budget of approximately 6.3 billion euros (2023), it is also one of the largest scientific research organizations worldwide.

In the Helmholtz Research Field Earth and Environment, scientists investigate the natural foundations of life on our planet—from the land surface to the oceans to the polar regions—in order to better understand the causes and consequences of global environmental changes such as climate change, species extinction, environmental pollution, and natural hazards, and to provide scientifically robust knowledge, innovative technologies, and concrete recommendations to policymakers, industry, and society.

The Helmholtz Forum Earth and Environment is the central platform for research synthesis and stakeholder dialogue in the Helmholtz Research Field Earth and Environment. The Forum bundles the expertise of the seven Helmholtz Earth and Environment Centers and acts as an interface between research, politics, and additional societal actors by specifically incorporating current findings from environmental and Earth system research into political discourse and highlighting evidence-based solutions and action options so that cutting-edge environmental research is effectively taken into account in public debates and decisions.

The following Centers are involved in the Helmholtz Research Field Earth and Environment:

• Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI)
• Forschungszentrum Jülich (FZJ)
• GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel
• GFZ Helmholtz Centre for Geosciences
• Helmholtz-Zentrum Hereon
• Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research – UFZ
• Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT)

The Helmholtz Association’s Research Field Earth and Environment submits this stakeholder commitment in the context of its joint research programme “Changing Earth – Sustaining our Future” (PoF IV, 2021–2027). Within this programme, we generate science-based understanding of biodiversity change and its links to ecosystem functioning by combining field studies and experiments with modelling, and by using taxonomic and functional metrics to characterize changes in biodiversity, detect shifts in community structure, relate these to ecosystem functioning, and link them to natural and anthropogenic drivers.

A major contribution of the Helmholtz Research Field Earth and Environment towards the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework is the development of integrated approaches for managed land- and seascapes that quantify interactions between land-use change, biodiversity, and ecosystem functions/services. Results are incorporated into scenarios of selected elements of biodiversity that account for dispersal dynamics, trait diversity and species interactions, as well as policy options and management strategies for recent and novel ecosystems (including soil systems). In this context, the programme “Changing Earth – Sustaining our Future” develops novel land-use change pathways using model-based back-casting approaches in cooperation with social scientists.

The Helmholtz Research Field strengthens observation capabilities through major infrastructures and coordinated monitoring. TERENO sites contribute to long-term observation of structures, functions and biodiversity across terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems and enable research on, among others, long-term effects of land-use change on biodiversity and related hydrological and biogeochemical processes. MOSES provides modular, highly flexible and mobile observation systems designed to unravel impacts of short-term events; it observes catchment-wide fluxes of energy, water and nutrients triggered by extreme hydrological events, including inland-to-coastal linkages, and supports event-oriented observation campaigns whose datasets are processed in close cooperation with programme topics. Mechanistic components such as MOBICOS riverine mesocosms enable the study of ecological responses along natural and anthropogenic impact gradients and help to investigate hydrological and biogeochemical cause–effect chains and feedbacks. The programme also expands activities towards the European-scale monitoring network eLTER, enabling effective monitoring of temporal variations and long-term trends in the context of biodiversity-relevant change across Europe.

Topic 6 “Marine and Polar Life: Sustaining Biodiversity, Biotic Interactions and Biogeochemical Functions” provides the scientific foundation for sustainable ocean management by determining the functions and dynamics of marine ecosystems and assessing options to remedy and mitigate human impacts. It studies the diversity, structure and functioning of the marine biosphere, investigates how marine organisms and ecosystems adapt and respond to anthropogenic perturbations, and assesses to what extent carbon dioxide uptake by the marine biosphere and biogeochemical cycles are affected by climate change. Research covers all levels of biological integration from genes to ecosystems and integrates knowledge on the ocean system from the equator to the poles. Using compatible sampling and experimental approaches across polar, temperate and tropical habitats, the Helmholtz scientists resolve unifying principles of organismal and community responses to environmental change and their role in shaping biogeography and species interactions, based on taxonomic and trait-based groupings. It addresses key drivers such as warming, sea-ice decline, decreasing pH values and oxygen contents, resource extraction, fisheries, and pollution. Ecological, evolutionary and biogeochemical approaches are integrated to assess responses of marine life via adaptation, range shifts and community turnover, and to determine how these responses affect food webs, carbon turnover and other element cycles, including the biological carbon pump and ocean productivity. Strategies for marine governance and conservation are evaluated by assessing the biological and biogeochemical consequences of ocean change. The Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity at the University of Oldenburg (HIFMB), strengthens integrated research on marine biodiversity and its importance for ecosystem functioning by integrating spatial patterns and temporal change, contributing to marine nature conservation and ecosystem management. 

The researchers of the Helmholtz Research Field further contribute biodiversity-relevant evidence by developing novel monitoring and assessment approaches for biota, chemicals and particles in environmental compartments (terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems including surface waters and deep sea, sediment, and interfaces) and by integrating non-chemical stressors (including climate-driven changes such as heat extremes) as integral parts of monitoring, including a monitoring toolbox for large-scale assessment of complex contamination and its natural attenuation and approaches to address multiple-stressor combinations at landscape scales.

Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres, Berlin, Germany

Evaluation of the programme “Changing Earth - Sustaining our Future” of the Helmholtz Research Field Earth and Environment by an international expert panel.