Summary of the LAMASUS Policy Advisory Board meeting – May 2025
Strategic Land-Use for EU Climate and Biodiversity Goals
At the Spring 2025 biannual meeting of the LAMASUS Policy Advisory Board (PAB), held in May, key stakeholders from DG AGRI, DG CLIMA, the European Environment Agency (EEA), Trinity College Dublin, and the Research Executive Agency (REA) convened to assess the project’s progress and provide strategic guidance.
Tamás Krisztin, from the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) and scientific coordinator of the LAMASUS project, presented significant advancements, including insights from the third stakeholder workshop and developments in Land Use Management (LUM) models. These models analyze how Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) instruments, climate variables, and market dynamics influence land-use patterns. Additionally, he introduced response functions for LUM changes and climate mitigation potentials, as well as coefficients estimating biodiversity responses to land use.
A focal point of the discussion was the upcoming policy brief titled “Maximizing CAP Impact: Advancing Climate, Biodiversity, and Farm Profitability through Strategic Action”. This brief highlights how targeted land-use changes can yield substantial biodiversity and climate benefits with minimal economic trade-offs. PAB members endorsed the relevance of the “win-win” mapping approach and recommended enhancing the clarity of methodologies and country-specific results to bolster policy applicability.
Petr Havlík from IIASA, LAMASUS Principal Investogator, presented a forthcoming perspective paper, “Sustainable Agricultural Sector: A Key Component of EU Economic Prosperity and Security,” co-authored by LAMASUS, BrightSpace, and ACT4CAP projects. The paper outlines five priority areas for policy action and serves as a framework for scenario analyses across the three projects.
The board also discussed three LAMASUS scenarios designed to achieve EU targets for CO₂ sequestration and biodiversity, each varying in their balance between environmental ambition, competitiveness, and food availability. Feedback emphasized the necessity of incorporating forward-looking competitiveness indicators, such as price ratios, over current market shares. Members advocated for scenarios that align with existing nature restoration legislation and soil health considerations, stressing the significant role of bioenergy in land-use decisions. Discussions also highlighted the importance of realistic productivity limits in forestry, economic incentives like carbon credits, and the integration of digital technologies for monitoring initiatives such as carbon farming.
Overall, PAB members made practical suggestions to ensure refinements aligned with the European Union’s objectives for climate neutrality, biodiversity conservation, and economic resilience.