Prof. Dr. Josef Settele works at the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) in Halle an der Saale, where he heads the department for Conservation Research. He holds a doctorate in agricultural science and is a professor of ecology at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg. He has always embedded his research focus on entomology in analyses of land use systems - both in terms of agricultural production and biodiversity conservation. Josef Settele has been involved in international assessments for many years and was, among others, Coordinating Lead Author (CLA) in the IPCC 5th Assessment Report and CLA in the IPBES Pollination Assessment. He was/is Co-Chair of the IPBES Global Assessment, together with Prof. Sandra Diaz (Argentina) and Prof. Eduardo Brondizio (USA/Brazil). He is also head of Butterfly Monitoring Germany (TMD), the only Germany-wide long-term monitoring program for insects. On July 1, 2020, he was appointed by the German government to the German Advisory Council on the Environment.
In November 2020, he published the book "The Triple Crisis," in which he analyzes the causes and consequences of the triple crisis of species extinction, climate change, and pandemics.