Protecting biodiversity with people and for people
Biodiversity conservation is destined to fail unless the rights and
needs of people enter the equation. While the necessity to protect
native habitat is undeniable, the provision of food, water, shelter, and
energy to humans often implies the sacrifice of large areas of native
habitat. How can we halt this habitat loss to sustain biodiversity,
while at the same time supporting the needs of an increasing global
human population?
Some changes will positively affect biodiversity by increasing the total
area of habitat reserved for nature, including top-down (e.g., market
regulations and policies) and bottom-up (e.g., efforts to reduce waste
and shift to plant-based food consumption) mechanisms. These are
important societal changes that we hope will occur rapidly as we
transition to a biodiversity-friendly future. But equally importantly,
careful planning that does not affect the total area reserved to nature
can optimize conservation investments. For instance, natural habitats
can be maintained within agricultural landscapes to sustain several
crucial services (e.g., pollination, pest control, and nutrient
retention). In the Midwestern US, removing from crop production
sub-field areas that are consistently under-yielding makes realistic
conservation possible across millions of hectares (13). Avoiding
growing food in such locations can reduce the total surface of land
needed to feed humanity, while maintaining production. As a further
example, restoration of small (≤ 0.16 ha) forest patches in oil palm
plantations can enhance biodiversity and multiple ecosystem services
without compromising yield (14). Thus, it is possible to reduce
the area allocated to land used by people and increase land for nature,
while also guaranteeing the services that people rely on.
Meanwhile, area-based conservation actions are inherently intertwined
with socio-political dynamics and ethics (3), and require
integrating biodiversity policy with other goals (e.g., the 17 United
Nations sustainable development goals, particularly goals tied to
biodiversity conservation such as “Zero hunger” and “Clean water and
sanitation”). For instance, heterogeneous landscape mosaics where
nature and people have coexisted for thousands of years (e.g.,
Indigenous lands) typically bolster both the intrinsic and utilitarian
values of nature (3). At the same time, actions to sustain
wilderness are not always desirable for people. For instance, global
conservation of large carnivores is complex because human-wildlife
conflicts disproportionately affect people in the global South, who
already incur disproportionately high costs for global biodiversity
conservation. Such costs include regulations on land use. For example,
the Brazilian Forest Code imposes a minimum of native habitat area to be
retained on private lands, and riparian zones are legally protected both
in Brazil and Malaysia. Thus, the burden of global biodiversity
conservation is placed upon the global South countries that are
experiencing the fastest population and economic growths, whereas
countries in the global North did not incur comparable limitations
during their development.
Consequently, consideration of aspects beyond – but dependent on –
biodiversity, such as productivity and ecosystem services, must be
central in the dialogue around how to implement area-based conservation
efforts. This dialogue requires weighing different conservation,
ethical, social, and economic priorities. It also requires confronting
debates such as the land sharing vs. land sparing debate, and the debate
over whether organic farming is the most effective approach for
biodiversity-friendly agricultural landscapes (7, 8, 15). We
stress that the principles we champion here must be central to the
process of weighing these different priorities, because failing to halt
biodiversity loss entails a real risk of societal collapse.