In a world first, researchers at ZSL and UCL compared changes in bird and mammal populations with socio-economic trends in low- and lower-middle income countries over the past 20 years. Their results suggest that national-level economic growth and more gender-balanced governments enhance wildlife populations and provide support for linking the UN’s human development and conservation targets.
In 2015, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development was formally adopted by all United Nations Member States to provide “a shared blueprint for peace and prosperity for people and the planet, now and into the future.” At its core are the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) which call for world-wide collaboration to reduce inequality, improve human health and education, promote economic growth, tackle climate change and conserve biodiversity.
This blend of demographic and environmental development is complex, and the SDGs are not the only agenda the international community is working to. Evidence of continuing biodiversity loss has led to a succession of conservation-focussed policies too, chief of which are the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) Aichi targets, set for 2020. With potentially competing priorities, the team at ZSL’s Institute of Zoology and UCL’s Centre for Biodiversity and Environment Research, wanted to understand whether progress towards socio-economic targets might limit the likelihood of meeting conservation ones.
Read more at Zoological Society of London
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