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Net positive outcomes for nature

Nature Ecology & Evolution volume 4, pages 4–7 (2020)Cite this article

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Much research and policy effort is being expended on ways to conserve living nature while enabling the economic and social development needed to increase equity and end poverty. We propose this will only be possible if policy shifts away from conservation targets that focus on avoiding losses towards processes that consider net outcomes for biodiversity.

The principle that nature conservation should be delivered alongside improvements to human well-being is well established in international policy1 (https://www.cbd.int/). It is therefore no surprise that widespread agreement emerged from the 2018 Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD; COP14) and at the 2019 World Economic Forum that biodiversity must be conserved for the sake of both people and planet2,3. Two questions dominated discussions at COP14: what activities can be counted towards meeting biodiversity conservation targets (throughout this Comment, we assume the nomenclature from the CBD); and can conservationists outline a global target, analogous to the global warming limit of 1.5–2.0 °C above pre-industrial levels, as a rallying point for biodiversity conservation? We consider that addressing these questions requires recognition that everything that results in desirable biodiversity outcomes (that is, retention or restoration) should count, and a shift of focus away from top-down global targets4 and towards finding a process-based framework within which to capture progress towards desired outcomes5.

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Fig. 1: Paraphrased key content of the Aichi Biodiversity Targets, valid until 2020, alongside some possible variations that would shift the focus towards net conservation outcomes.

Aichi Biodiversity Targets icons, copyright BIP/SCBD

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Acknowledgements

We thank G. M. Mace and C. Bryan for feedback on a draft version of this manuscript.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology, University of Kent, Canterbury, UK

    Joseph W. Bull & Sophus O. S. E. zu Ermgassen

  2. Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

    Joseph W. Bull, E. J. Milner-Gulland, Prue F. E. Addison, William N. S. Arlidge, Julia Baker, Michael J. Burgass, Amy Hinsley & Samuel P. Sinclair

  3. Balfour Beatty Civil Engineering, London, UK

    Julia Baker

  4. International Union for the Conservation of Nature, Gland, Switzerland

    Thomas M. Brooks

  5. World Agroforestry Center, University of the Philippines Los Baños, Laguna, Philippines

    Thomas M. Brooks

  6. Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies, University of Tasmania, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia

    Thomas M. Brooks

  7. Department of Life Sciences, Imperial College London, London, UK

    Michael J. Burgass

  8. Biodiversify Ltd, Newark, UK

    Michael J. Burgass & Samuel P. Sinclair

  9. University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

    Martine Maron & James E. M. Watson

  10. Wildlife Conservation Society, New York, NY, USA

    John G. Robinson & James E. M. Watson

  11. World Wildlife Fund, Washington DC, USA

    Nik Sekhran

  12. Synchronicity Earth, London, UK

    Simon N. Stuart

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Contributions

J.W.B., J.E.M.W., E.J.M.-G., M.J.B. and S.P.S. conceived the manuscript. J.W.B. wrote the manuscript, with support from J.E.M.W. and E.J.M.-G. P.F.E.A., W.N.S.A., J.B., T.M.B., M.J.B., A.H., M.M., J.G.R., N.S., S.P.S., S.N.S. and S.O.S.E.z.E. provided substantive insights and gave comment and review.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Joseph W. Bull.

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Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

Extended data

Extended Data Fig. 1 Map of the full extent of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

Latest estimate of the spatial distribution of anthropogenic impacts upon nature, the terrestrial ‘human footprint’ [data from 18,19], against proposed development corridors for BRI [38]. Note that the human footprint addresses the ‘ecosystems’ dimension of biodiversity only. Yellow border = area displayed in Box 1 (China and Central Asia).

Extended Data Fig. 2 Map of the central and eastern BRI region featuring examples of primarily illegally traded wildlife products, along with the approximate direction of trade.

Overlaid onto the human footprint and main BRI corridors displayed in Extended Data Fig. 1.

Extended Data Fig. 3 Global Inventory of Biodiversity Offset Policies (GIBOP) policy scores (0 – 3) for the 196 parties to the CBD.

The recently developed GIBOP [26] reports the results of the most comprehensive global analysis of national net outcome-type conservation policies. The interpretation of GIBOP policy score, in terms of the existence of national policies applying a mitigation hierarchy to biodiversity impacts, is given in the figure. Inset: Rule of Law index (World Justice Project, 2019) scores against GIBOP policy score for the 123 of those countries for which data are available, giving an indication of the likelihood of legal compliance, grouped again by GIBOP policy score.

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Bull, J.W., Milner-Gulland, E.J., Addison, P.F.E. et al. Net positive outcomes for nature. Nat Ecol Evol 4, 4–7 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-019-1022-z

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