Biodiversity science workshop: Introduction to genetic diversity

• Department of Law

The EUI Environmental Law and Governance and the Environmental and Climate Politics Working Groups host an event with Cristiano Vernesi (Fondazione Edmund Mach).

Genetic diversity is one of the three pillars of biodiversity together with species and ecosystem diversity. In spite of its relevance, insofar it has been largely neglected in many international regulations such as those stipulated by the Convention on Biological Diversity. In this seminar, some basic information on genetic diversity will be provided to understand why it should be given a central role, especially in the current time of global changes. Finally, a brief description of the process leading to the recent approval of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework will be given. This GBF marks an historical step in the acknowledgement of genetic diversity importance.

About the speaker

After a PhD in Evolutionary Anthropology from the University of Florence, Cristiano Vernesi has been mainly working in the field of population and conservation genetics, with a specific expertise on ancient DNA. He's now a Senior Researcher at the Fondazione Edmund Mach (Trento, Italy) where he studies the genetic dimension of biodiversity in mountain areas. He is also involved in European and international projects addressing the science-policy interface of biodiversity.