Falko Buschke

Biodiversity and ecosystem services specialist

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Services

Area-based conservation

Planning, managing, and monitoring working landscapes, protected areas and OECMs.

Biodiversity information systems

Mapping species and ecosystems and navigating the growing suite of metrics to measure nature.

Development cooperation

Facilitating north-south and south-south partnerships for science-based conservation.

International environmental policy

Aligning actions in the private and public sectors to the Global Biodiversity Framework.

Portfolio

African protected areas
Led the production of the European Commission's Atlas of African Protected Areas.
Conservation tourism
Led the release of the database of African protected area visitation.
Mammal herbivore coexistence
Developed a framework to understand how mammal biodiversity persists across African savannas.
Ecosystem services
Led the ecosystem services section of the 2nd edition of the State of Protected and Conserved Areas report for Eastern and Southern Africa.
Biodiversity information systems
Produced policy guidance for tailoring global biodiversity information for national decision-making.
Ecological limits to biodiversity offsetting
Developed multiple models on how ecological resilience determines the feasibility of nature positive outcomes.
Biodiversity metrics and indicators
Stress-tested how global biodiversity indicators (Living Planet Index and the Red List Index) handle ecological uncertainty.
Science diplomacy
Analysed two decades of scientific collaboration to inform the European Commission’s scientific policies on Africa.
Conservation entrepreneurship
Explored ways of incubating conservation startups to become economically self-sustaining.

About me



I’m Falko Buschke, a biodiversity and ecosystem services specialist based in South Africa. I can help you use scientific data to align your international development cooperation programme with the Global Biodiversity Framework.

I currently serve as the country engagement specialist to the Global Ecosystems Atlas, an international initiative to develop a map of the world's ecosystems (contracted to the Group on Earth Observations (GEO) and World Meteorological Organisation (WMO)).

I am the African Regional Editor for the scientific journal Conservation Biology and am an active member of the IUCN Commission on Ecosystem Management. I also advise the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) as a member of the selection panel for the Biodiversity Information for Development (BID) programme.

Before becoming an independent scientist, I spent 2 years at the European Commission Joint Research Centre in Italy, where I was the focal point for Eastern and Southern Africa in the Biodiversity and Protected Areas Management Programme (BIOPAMA). This built on a PhD from KU Leuven , Belgium, 7 years in academia at the University of the Free State, South Africa, and 2 years as a freelancer for GOPA Com. contributing to the European Commission’s Africa Knowledge Platform.

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