EXPANDING NATURE-POSITIVE ECONOMIES
For centuries, development has come at the expense of nature.
What if nature and people could thrive in the same place, forever? What if communities could become resilient to climate change and protect their livelihoods and food security without destroying nature’s life-support systems?
Conservation International aims to create self-sustaining, scalable conservation models that can be adapted from one country to another by focusing on large ecological systems that we call landscapes and seascapes. From the Galápagos Islands to the rangelands of South Africa, this integrated “Sustainable Landscapes and Seascapes” approach is offering lessons for how humanity can protect nature while weathering — and even abating — climate breakdown and wildlife extinction.
THE FACTS
In 2015, 193 countries signed onto the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which aim to end poverty, fight inequality, prevent environmental degradation, improve public health and tackle climate change by 2030.
One essential element underlies nearly all of these goals: nature. In fact, most of the goals cannot be met if we don’t have healthy, functioning terrestrial, freshwater and marine ecosystems. And we are failing in our protection of nature: Businesses, governments and communities are not yet working together in the right ways and in the right places to sufficiently protect nature so that it can help deliver sustainable development for all.
Recognizing that conservation works best when it takes into account the many uses and functions of an area of land or sea — and the people who rely on and steward it — Conservation International has selected 16 places on the planet to deploy our Sustainable Landscapes and Seascapes approach.
PLANETARY GOALS
-Where humanity needs to be by 2030-
We must adopt a model of sustainable nature-based and climate-resilient development that supports the Sustainable Development Goals in some of the world’s most ecologically important places by 2030.
HERE’S WHAT WE ARE DOING :
Conservation International supports nature-based development approaches in the world’s most important places for nature by:
- Working with partners in a number of landscapes and seascapes to demonstrate that when nature is conserved and restored, human well-being improves.
- Developing innovative ways to combine government, corporate, donor and investor funding to help places transition to nature-based development.
- Creating and demonstrating viable production models for commodities that link public demand, sustainable production, protection of essential resources and local benefits.
