Focus 2. Social, political and economic drivers of biodiversity loss
The proximate causes of biodiversity loss (e.g. habitat fragmentation, habitat loss and overexploitation) are well documented. However, much less is known about the primary social, political and economic factors that drive the loss of biodiversity, or the contexts in which they operate.
The net effect of changing key social, political and economic variables on incentives to conserve biodiversity could be positive or negative. Understanding the mechanisms and conditions that lead to positive or negative outcomes is a prerequisite for developing successful conservation policies that will reach their stated objectives.
Through this task, bioSUSTAINABILITY aims to enhance the understanding of the various mechanisms by which social, political and economic drivers affect the proximate causes of biodiversity loss. General tendencies revealed in the original statistical analysis will then be used to construct more detailed models that focus on specific case studies in various regions of the world and different ecosystem types. |
