Knowledge gaps

From a long-term perspective, an important product of the assessment would be the establishment of an Africa region research agenda that clearly articulates gaps and set priorities for addressing them

Africa still does not know the full potential of biodiversity and of nature’s contributions to its economic and technological development, and it continues to lose a large part of these resources and knowledge

Existing studies on the valuation of biodiversity and nature’s contributions to people in Africa are few and limited in both geographical scope and the types of ecosystems covered.

This section thereby recognises the need for improved research to grant a better understanding of the impact of the alteration of the ecosystem on livelihood, health, and freedom, to better inform decision-making in the land-use planning, biodiversity and nature conservation and resource allocation for the attainment of total well-being for a man in the African region.

There are currently limited studies providing evidence as to how a change of ecosystem structure and services may impact human freedom, a research gap that requires prioritisation

Africa’s waters are known for the abundance of their fishery resources, with the six Large Marine Ecosystems (LMEs) ranking within the first four most productive LMEs in the world (inconclusive)

Africa has a significant amount of undocumented indigenous local knowledge that would enhance our understanding of biodiversity and ecosystem services status and trends (inconclusive).

Research on nature’s contribution to humans on regulatory and non-material contribution is largely lacking in most parts of Africa

A major knowledge gap in this arena, which needs to be addressed is the impact of sport hunting on the populations of various species of megafauna in Africa.

Mostly, the scenarios paint general pictures of social-ecological trajectories for Africa, where changes in human well-being are not necessarily directly linked to changes in biodiversity or ecosystem services. - The links between biodiversity, ecosystem services and human well-being are only partly explored in the scenarios assessed in this chapter. - There is also very little regional specificity when it comes to human well-being in the different scenario studies

There are many drivers that have not been considered in scenarios of future development pathways across Africa

In general, significant uncertainty and knowledge gaps remain around biofuel production in Africa (Niang et al., 2014), particularly with respect to socio-ecological sustainability considerations and land-use trade-offs (i.e., food versus fuel), and how trade-offs are manifest both.

For Africa specifically, the existence of large data gaps around wild pollinators and their services (species identity, distribution and abundance) precludes any conclusive statements about pollinator impacts for the continent (IPBES, 2016).

there is relatively little published literature that considers the full suite of scenario archetypes for Africa, and few comparable studies on the same species groups, precluding the assessment of collective responses per taxon at this time

There is a strong spatial bias towards biodiversity studies in Southern Africa (South Africa specifically), and to a lesser extent, East Africa. Central Africa is most poorly represented. - Specifically, there is a need for further scenarios and modelling work on tropical ecosystems that takes into account the different levels of biotic interactions and that incorporates sufficient geographical (scale issues), ecological and taxonomic resolution (Kissling et al., 2010; Jaramillo et al., 2011). [...]

The direct links between biodiversity features, ecosystem services and human livelihoods are not well explored.

There is a major need for building the capacity of African researchers, policymakers and institutions to understand, carry out and use scenario analyses.

In particular, there is a need to broaden the focus of African scenario studies beyond modelling climate change impacts, and especially to better incorporate broad stakeholder participation and ILK into scenario processes.

There are currently clear gaps in the type and distribution of scenario studies in Africa, with some subregions – such as central, northern and western Africa – being particularly poorly covered.

The links between NCP and human well-being are not often explored in much detail beyond climate change impacts on disease vectors and livelihoods.

A large regional gap is the identification of conservation priorities for the coastal and offshore marine habitats and species.

In addition to human capacity-building, there is a need to generate information, in particular quantitative data, needed for the development of scenarios and to take into account the specific contexts and diversity of the subregions, groups of people and related differences in culture, and in ecological, social and economic conditions.

Central, North and West Africa are poorly represented, have limited stakeholder participation and limited incorporation of indigenous and local knowledge.

Central, North and West Africa are poorly represented, have limited stakeholder participation and limited incorporation [...] for valuation studies of biodiversity and nature’s contributions to people.

There is also generally limited accessible peer-reviewed and grey literature to support a comprehensive assessment of policy and governance options for Africa. It also presents an opportunity for the development of case studies and pilot projects that explore the different policy options and instruments that are specifically relevant in the African context.

Knowledge gaps on nature’s non-material contributions to people that contribute to quality of life

Knowledge gaps were identified on the impact of nature’s contributions to people to quality of life, in particular because there is a mismatch between social data related to quality of life produced at the political scale and ecological data produced at a biome scale.

Knowledge gaps for assessing the linkages between indirect and direct drivers and between the drivers and specific changes in biodiversity and nature’s contributions to people.

Much biodiversity remains to be scientifically recorded for all types of ecosystems, particularly in the South American subregion and in the deep oceans in general.

Investments in generating new knowledge [..] may better elucidate how human quality of life is highly dependent on a healthy natural environment, as well as how threats to natural environments affect quality of life in the short, median and long term

Short-term and long-term policy evaluation in the Americas is generally insufficient. This is most pronounced in Mesoamerica, South America and the Caribbean

The factors that affect the ability to generalize and scale up or down the results of individual studies + The evaluation of the impacts of short-term and long-term policy and programmes

data concerning the coproduction of ecosystem services, which involves a relationship between social and ecological systems.

data concerning the historical factors that have shaped power relations between institutions and social groups that use and distribute ecosystem services

Data concerning the effects of improved ecosystem service flows on human well-being, when power dynamics impact the distribution of benefits

Admittedly, there are more difficulties in quantifying and valuing these less tangible NCP, which are more amenable to the standardization of monetary values via market mechanisms

More holistic evaluations should put greater attention on the role of regulating and non-material (cultural) NCP when assessing land change processes and well change in the ocean - more comprehensive assessments of costs, benefits and values are necessary to more fully understand the relationship of nature and quality of life at the regional and subregional scales.

message 16 - relative absence of long-term data, particularly for some regulating and non-material nature’s contributions to people

some political entities are under-represented or absent from global country-level databases (e.g. Greenland)

Basic inventorying of biodiversity is far from complete in the Americas. Accumulated species descriptions for vascular plants have not yet reached an asymptote. - With very few exceptions, we currently lack accurate knowledge of biodiversity at the biome level. Data on population sizes and genetic diversity is scarce outside the North American subregion. Likewise, long-term series data are few and far between making it difficult to detect temporal trends.

Progress in the detection of the impacts of climate change on biodiversity, conservation gaps, and areas with high concentrations of invasive species today depends heavily on georeferenced biodiversity occurrence data

The density of georeferenced data varies widely among subregions - The South American subregion lags behind, but important efforts are getting underway. [...] Not having access to all biodiversity data, in addition to hindering research progress, introduces uncertainty in the results of regional and global-scale studies that rely heavily on occurrence data and lowers the quality of environmental impact studies within countries;- Where available, the information is limited to a few groups of better-known organisms and does not necessarily coincide with the spatial delineation of the World Wildlife Fund terrestrial biomes adopted by the assessment - Although many formally accredited sites are found in the Americas, these are strongly concentrated in the USA, Mexico, and Brazil;- Two major challenges for the future in the Americas are to standardize information and to make it available in a template that is usable by decision makers.

A major gap in our understanding, perhaps with the exception of carbon storage, are links between biodiversity and ecosystem services or NCP at large spatial scale

Studies linking biodiversity and other less tangible kinds of NCP are incipient

Two major challenges for the future in the Americas are to standardize information and to make it available in a template that is usable by decision makers.

Basic exploration is incomplete, especially in the richest biodiversity areas. [...]In South America experts predict that around 50 per cent of marine biodiversity remains undiscovered [...] functions across taxonomic groups is growing but remains scarce in some subregions.

Making all biodiversity data available online, and the production of standardized biodiversity data useful for policymakers

Scaling up from ecological studies to the biome level.

Consumer products - Personal-care products - Multitude of (partially unknown) effects).

Significant knowledge gaps of invasive species in the Americas exist