Strengthening global biodiversity through effective communication
Recent Master of Environment and Business graduate Florencia Panizza analyzes media to inform the successful implementation of the Nature Restoration Regulation.
Global biodiversity is in rapid decline, with an estimated 1 million species at risk of extinction. The Nature Restoration Regulation (NRR), which came into effect in 2024, sets binding targets for European countries to restore at least 30% of their continent’s land and seas by 2030. The NRR narrowly passed into law and faced significant opposition, driven by a widespread campaign of disinformation through social media and other channels. Now that the regulation is in effect, effective implementation will not occur without a stakeholder engagement strategy.
Florencia Panizza, a recent graduate from the Master of Environment and Business, understands the importance of communication and media to create buy-in. She has over two decades of marketing and communications experience and moved to Switzerland in 2018 to work as a consultant. Living a short drive from the French border, Panizza closely followed reporting on the opposition to the NRR, especially from members of the French agricultural community.
For her final MEB capstone project, Panizza identified stakeholder collaboration approaches for the French agricultural sector to support the implementation of the EU Nature Restoration Regulation. To create this approach, Panizza analyzed key stakeholders to establish their views, needs and priorities. She then identified barriers of NRR implementation based on these stakeholders and the external context in which they live and work. Lastly, Panizza established collaborative stakeholder processes that would allow these farmers to support and implement the NRR.
Panizza analyzed social media posts on X and publications from mainstream media, independent media, trade press and independent newsletters. To supplement the document review and social media analysis, Panizza also conducted interviews with experts in ecological restoration and stakeholder engagement.
Panizza’s findings showed that the French agricultural community wants to be respected and consulted on issues that impact their sector, valued for their work and compensated fairly. They are an essential part of the solution for sustainable agriculture, but they need the right tools and support to enable this transition. In Europe, policy development that impacts the agricultural industry is widely driven by geopolitics but needs to also support local agricultural communities. Most importantly, farmers understand the advantages of sustainable agriculture; but ecology has been politicized in the region, creating barriers to collaboration.
“Through the Capstone, I was able to explore opposing perspectives and understand the challenges, as well as some strategies for overcoming them,” says Panizza. “The research taught me some valuable lessons about approaches to stakeholder engagement in a sector - agriculture - that was new to me.”
Panizza’s project reveals important considerations that can inform the development of a collaborative approach for the successful implementation of the NRR. These findings can be used to fight against climate change and biodiversity loss. She continues to work in communications consulting, where she applies the ideas and concepts from the MEB directly to her work. Panizza can now combine her expertise in marketing and communication with her new knowledge of environment and business to work with clients in the environmental sector.
