Bettina Hedden-Dunkhorst is Head of the Division for International Nature Conservation at the Federal Agency for Nature Conservation (Bundesamt für Naturschutz, BfN) in Bonn.
Common ground: Biodiversity
The German Federal Agency for Nature Conservation (BfN), ZEF and their Ethiopian partners have worked closely together to facilitate the establishment of UNESCO biosphere reserves for the conservation and sustainable use of Ethiopia’s wild coffee forests. The successive funding from three German ministries (BMBF, BMUV, BMZ) created an ideal sequence of support for German development cooperation, with research, capacity development and implementation components building on each other. In general, the exchange with ZEF staff and students inspired us to develop new project ideas in the context of biodiversity and nature conservation and provided networking opportunities with researchers and stakeholders from the Global South.
Think global, act local
A “think global, act local” approach is extremely helpful in addressing development issues. ZEF’s PhD program successfully works with this concept. The BIGS-DR program invites young people from all over the world, especially from the Global South, and supports them in conducting research, often on local problems and solutions in their home countries. At the same time, students
can interact with their peers around the world. Inter- and transdisciplinary research components facilitate stakeholder engagement, training and mutual learning to
address local challenges.
Wishes: Stay on track!
I wish ZEF space, time and sufficient resources to continue to think and act out of the box, and to develop innovative research and educational approaches that address development issues around the world. ZEF should continue to emphasize solution- and implementation-oriented research and the training of young researchers as future influential scholars, leaders, and decision-makers. It should also seek to strengthen the science-policy interface, as the involvement of the policy level is key to implementation.
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