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ASI Research Cluster Biodiversity and Natural Resources

The research cluster Biodiversity and Natural Resources brings together Vrije Universiteit researchers and external stakeholders to form a platform for the exchange of knowledge and generate new expertise on sustainability issues related to both biodiversity and natural resources.

Biodiversity and natural resources are under increasing pressure in contemporary times of overheating (Eriksen 2016, Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services ). What is the role of biodiversity for the future earth? What is the impact of the human use of natural resources? This research cluster explores how raw materials and biodiversity are related in natural landscapes, economic systems, global culture, and ecological, social, and political connections. We scrutinise biodiversity parameters and how they connect with resource use and supply's physical and social dimensions. What can we learn from the study of entanglements of nature and culture and imagining alternative interactions with the environment?

The Cluster is a meeting place grounded in Responsible Research & Innovation principles and citizen and stakeholder involvement. Researchers and societal partners cooperate, co-design and co-create research and impact projects. The Cluster contributes new knowledge through transdisciplinary collaborations. It brings together national and internationally funded research projects at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam that are linked to biodiversity improvement, resource use, mineral supply chains, and landscape change.

Current projects:

  • By linking ecological and socio-economic systems, we assess both existing and alternative land use models of key actors in the value chain. We focus on the roles for payments based on biodiversity and ecosystem services from the market and society.
  • By linking biodiversity, climate and anthropogenic change from the deep history to the future of Europe’s landscapes, we assess the potential for applying and upscaling sustainable landscape change, including rewilding.
  • How do the social and ecological aspects of mining relate? The extraction of mineral resources requires reasoned trade-offs on extractive lifeways worldwide, nature conservation and the great hunger for resources, among other things, to enable the energy transition.

Current publications: 

WHAT IS NATURE? Three visual explorations of nature

Watch and download the three films around the topic of nature

More information: 

Our mission aligns with the profile themes ‘Science for Sustainability’ and ‘Connected World’  of the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, in which sustainable development involves achieving a just and inclusive balance between ecology, social concerns, and economic interests. We take into account the influence of globalisation on ecological, human, cultural, economic and political relationships relating to landscape change.

Our network and research

Our network and research

Our research cluster on biodiversity and natural resources needs the support of a large array of disciplinary sectors from the sciences, humanities and social sciences. We link e.g. to the Environmental Humanities Centre EHC, and the Interfaculty Research Institute for Culture, Cognition, History and Heritage CLUE+.

More information can also be found here:

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