Six years after its founding, the Wyss Academy for Nature brought around 180 partners, colleagues, and guests from science, policy, business, and media, together in Bern to celebrate what has been built and to ask what six years of working across different landscapes have taught us about turning knowledge into practical change. 

At the Kursaal in Bern on 25 August 2026, the Wyss Academy for Nature marked six years of work across landscapes in East Africa, South America, Southeast Asia, and Switzerland. Beyond the milestone itself, Beyond5: Building the future together focused on a question with wider relevance: what allows scientific knowledge, local experience, policy, and practical action to come together in ways that make a difference for nature and people? 

The evening was a celebration, but also a moment of reflection. Director Prof. Dr. Peter Messerli set that tone early. Against the backdrop of another hot summer and growing environmental pressures, he asked: “Is it really time to celebrate?” 

His answer was yes, but with an eye firmly on what comes next. The first six years had given the Wyss Academy and its partners much to celebrate, while also offering a moment to reflect on what had been learned and where that experience could lead. 

For Messerli, one question remains particularly pressing: “How can we overcome this gap between knowing and doing?” Knowledge about climate change, biodiversity loss, and pressures on livelihoods has grown considerably. Yet these challenges remain closely connected to the economic, political, and social systems that shape how people use land, resources, and nature. 

“We know enough to act,” Messerli said. “But we will never know exactly how the future will unfold.” 

The implication is not to wait for perfect knowledge. It is to continue combining evidence with experimentation, partnerships, and the willingness to adapt. 

Through three ‘sparks,’ colleagues from Kenya, the Canton of Bern, and Peru shared what the work looks like on the ground in their respective landscapes. 

In northern Kenya, Sheila Funnell told the story of an elephant and livestock corridor near Ol Donyiro that many considered too obstructed to reopen. The elephants knew the path. Local communities knew it too. The challenge was turning that knowledge into governance that could protect it. Today, the corridor is secured through formal planning and community governance. Funnell described the change simply: these paths no longer exist only “in the memory of elephants,” but also in the rules and structures that shape the landscape. Other communities are already drawing on similar approaches. 

Cyrill Hess of Hub Bern gave the Grosses Moos story a memorable symbol: a pair of rubber boots, standing in for the effort to understand competing perspectives on the same landscape. In a region where farmers and environmental organizations held strongly differing views about soil, water, biodiversity, and agriculture, even starting a constructive conversation was not a given. 

Hess recalled one farmer who had been deeply skeptical of the process from the outset, later saying that he had joined an early workshop intending “to kill our project.” But visits to farms and conservation areas gave participants a chance to see the landscape through one another’s eyes – and gradually changed the tone of the conversation. 

“It seems like putting on rubber boots works wonders,” Hess recalled. The image became a simple symbol for a larger lesson: progress often begins with understanding why others see the same landscape differently. 

Prof. Dr. Armando Valdés-Velásquez took the audience to Madre de Dios in the Peruvian Amazon. Against pressures from mining, logging, and land conversion, he pointed to local tourism associations whose livelihoods depend on keeping more than 20,000 hectares of forest standing. His broader point was that conservation cannot be separated from livelihoods, governance, Indigenous knowledge, and the people who shape the future of a territory. 

Across all three stories, the settings and challenges differed, but a common thread emerges: evidence matters, yet evidence alone rarely changes a system. Relationships, governance, incentives, and local knowledge all shape what becomes possible. 

An expert panel, moderated by former ICRC Director-General Yves Daccord, brought perspectives from research policy, the private sector, and international conservation. 

Martina Hirayama, State Secretary for Education, Research and Innovation,  reflected on the conditions needed for research and innovation to respond to complex challenges. Picking up Hess’s metaphor, she noted that people shaping policy and framework conditions also need their own “rubber boots”, an understanding of what ideas encounter in practice. 

Barbara Dubach, Executive Director of Innovate 4 Nature, focused on the role of business and investment. Awareness of nature-related risks is growing in the private sector, she argued, but translating that awareness into decisions and action remains a challenge. Scientific evidence, appropriate financing, and collaboration across sectors can help move promising solutions further. 

Brian O’Donnell, Director of Campaign for Nature and a member of the Wyss Academy Advisory Committee, connected the discussion to global biodiversity ambitions. 

“Conservation succeeds at the pace of trust,” he said. For O’Donnell, global goals ultimately depend on what happens in particular places – and on whether the people living there can shape the solutions and see value in them.  

Looking ahead, Messerli described the first six years as a period of deliberately going deep – staying with complex challenges in particular places, building relationships, and learning through practice. The next step, he suggested, is to connect that experience more widely: not by exporting ready-made solutions, but by understanding what others can adapt, build on, or carry forward in their own contexts. 

Prof. Dr. Christian Leumann, President of the Wyss Academy Board, closed the evening by taking an even longer view. Research, he said, should not end with papers or recommendations. The value of the Wyss Academy’s work lies in bringing knowledge into real-world settings, working with the people who shape those places, and learning which approaches can lead to lasting change. 

For Leumann, that also means remaining open to learning and adjustment. Complex nature–people challenges rarely follow a predictable path, and progress depends on understanding what works, under which conditions, and for whom. 

This convening was therefore both a celebration and a checkpoint. The first six years have built partnerships, evidence, experience, and trust across very different landscapes. The next chapter is about how that learning can travel – through communities, policy, research, business, and new partnerships – while remaining grounded in the places and people that shaped it in the first place.  

Our sincere thanks go to all panelists and guests, and to the team at Kursaal Bern, for making Beyond5 such a memorable evening. 

Article written by Predrag Tripković