Program

Who are we?

The National Museum of Natural History (MNHN), Carbone 4, and the Foundation for Research on Biodiversity (FRB) have jointly developed this methodological initiative.

The objective is to associate expected biodiversity gains with biodiversity-friendly practices, based on expert judgment. Practices are assessed relative to each other within the reference frame of their socio-ecosystem. Practices are compared within curated lists (known as taxonomies) designed for a given socio-ecosystem in a specific climatic and geographical context.

This initiative was conceived as a crossroads of biodiversity expertise. The practices of a socio-ecosystem are written by field managers (chambers of agriculture, nature conservation trusts, NGOs, syndicates, land management companies, etc.)  and evaluated by biodiversity experts (ecologists, naturalists, agronomists…).

You can contact us at: contact@puzzling-biodiversity.org

Methodology

Taxonomies of practices already developed:

Socio-ecosystem under evaluation (from 19/05 to 30/06):

Drafting led by the OBC (Organisation for Biodiversity Certificates) and reviewed by expert stakeholders from the FRB and specially targeted experts.

If this initial exercise proves fruitful, additional socio-ecosystems will be explored.

Simplifying assumptions:

A project can be broken down into a list of practices. Biodiversity gain is additive.  It is possible to compare the effectiveness of different actions based on an 'average context' for the considered socio-ecosystem.
The assumptions of independence between practices apply only in the initial stage and are relaxed in subsequent stages ('interactions between practices' & 'environment's effects').

Biodiversity is not furtherly defined, as we aim to embrace its broad definition: “the entire living fabric of the planet.” A more restrictive definition would hinder the complementarity of various expert perspectives. Specifying biodiversity would introduce two biases : prioritizing or excluding certain of its dimensions /  forcing experts to judge based on criteria misaligned with their accumulated knowledge.

Consensus around what constitutes ‘biodiversity-friendly’ should emerge organically within the scientific community, across disciplines and backgrounds.

‘Practice Taxonomy’ Approach

Benefits of a practice list:

Collective intelligence – Practices are described by those who carry them out, and evaluated by those who study them. This encourages active engagement from all relevant communities of a given socio-ecosystem, fostering collaborative work among stakeholders.

Accessibility – Easy to use, open-access, simple to explain and understand, and easy to improve. Enables clear, visible, and verifiable biodiversity targets without measurement costs. Supports small-scale projects that can be woven into broader territorial coherence.

Implementation

Practices are broken down into 3 to 6 levels, numbered from 0 to 5 (max). These levels are cumulative: achieving one level implies the completion of all preceding ones. This stepwise structure allows for accessible entry points while encouraging an ambitious trajectory.

All actions at each level should aim to increase the biodiversity of the socio-ecosystem. We are comparing improvements; this tool does not assess biodiversity loss.

Level 0 serves as a baseline and should be comparable across practices as contributing ‘no biodiversity gain.’ It may reflect the absence of management, minimum legal compliance, or typical conventional use. The highest level represents the full implementation of a given practice. This breakdown facilitates progressive adoption and integration of biodiversity goals into local planning.

‘Expert Majority Voting’ Approach

Expert Judgment:

To reflect the diversity of biodiversity aspects, including practice interactions and context effects, we rely on expert intuition to navigate uncertainties not addressed by in vivo field experiments. The reality of multiple conditions and combinations cannot be fully captured experimentally.

Measurement becomes a function of concordance among evaluations by a complementary community of experts. Biodiversity is no longer measured through the aggregation of individually quantified parameters, but through the collective wisdom of accumulated expertise.

Relative Positioning

This platform’s method consists in positioning proposals relative to one another. It is arguably impossible to quantify biodiversity—especially when it is not strictly defined. Yet, proposals can be spaced out in a way that reflects the magnitude of their biodiversity benefits.

The resulting evaluation allows for a form of quantification by assessing differences in gains, as represented by the distances between proposals.

Acknowledgements

The consortium would like to thank the patrons who made this project possible. This program has benefited from the support of the Museum for the Planet Endowment Fund, with the sponsorship of Kering, the Organisation for Biodiversity Certificates, AXA, ADP group, Vinci Construction, L’Occitane en Provence, Natran, and RTE.

Contact them : fondsdedotation@mnhn.fr

Special thanks as well to the team that enabled the methodological development of Puzzling Biodiversity: Romain Julliard, Flavie Thévenard, Arthur Pivin, Matthias Gaboriau, Louise Dupuis, Hélène Soubelet, Aurélie Delavaud, Denis Couvet, Colin Fontaine, and the MOSAIC team at the MNHN who designed and developed the platform (as well as everyone who participated in the design workshops, the practice taxonomy, and our collective reflections).

  Contact them : MOSAIC - mosaic@mnhn.fr
(Methods and Tools for Participatory Science)
Jointly overseen by the MNHN and Sorbonne University.

A heartfelt thank-you to all the experts who gave their time, a precious resource, to contribute to the evaluation of the taxonomies and the success of this project.

Contact us : contact@puzzling-biodiversity.org