Biodiversity Conservation and Poverty Alleviation: Exploring the Evidence for a Link

Biodiversity conservation and poverty alleviation are both important societal goals demanding increasing international attention. While they may seem to be unrelated, the international policy frameworks that guide action to address them make an explicit assumption that conserving biodiversity will help to tackle global poverty. This book explores the validity of that assumption. The book addresses a number of critical questions:

• Which aspects of biodiversity are of value to the poor?
• Does the relationship between biodiversity and poverty differ according to particular ecological conditions?
• How do different conservation interventions vary in their poverty impacts?
• How do distributional and institutional issues affect the poverty impacts of interventions?
• How do broader issues such as climate change and the global economic system affect the biodiversity – poverty relationship at different scales?

This volume will be of interest to policy-makers, practitioners and researchers concerned with understanding the potential – and limitations – of integrated approaches to biodiversity conservation and poverty alleviation.

Dilys Roeis a senior researcher in IIED’s Natural Resources Group and leads their work on biodiversity. Since 2004, Dilys has coordinated the Poverty and Conservation Learning Group – a network of organisations that is intended to improve dialogue on poverty-conservation linkages. While the majority of Dilys’ work focusses on biodiversity-development/conservation-poverty issues, she also has a research interest in community-based natural resource management and community-based conservation; ecosystem-based adaptation and high biodiversity REDD+. 

Joanna Elliottis Vice President for Programme Design at the African Wildlife Foundation and a Visiting Fellow in IIED’s Natural Resources Group. Joanna has worked extensively in the field and at policy levels on biodiversity-development linkages, and has led applied research programmes on land use economics, conservation enterprise development and measuring the socio-economic impacts of conservation. 

Chris Sandbrookis a Lecturer in Conservation Leadership at the United Nations Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC). In this role he helps to run the Masters in Conservation Leadership course at the University of Cambridge. Chris has diverse research interests, including the implications of market-based approaches to conservation such as ecotourism and REDD, the relationship between great ape conservation and poverty alleviation, and the values held by those working in conservation.

Matt Walpoleis Head of the Ecosystem Assessment Programme at UNEP-WCMC. In this role Matt oversees a diverse portfolio focusing on improving the uptake and use of information on biodiversity and its values, including its role in supporting livelihoods and poverty alleviation, amongst policymakers. Matt’s research interests include a focus on interdisciplinary approaches to conservation research and practice and exploring the widespread links between poverty and conservation.