Biodiversity conservation and the Millennium development grants

Jeffrey D. Sachs, Jonathan E. M. Ballie, William J. Sutherland, Paul R. Aimsworth, Neville Ash, John Beddington, Tim M. Blackburn, Ben Collen, Barry Gardiner, Kevin J. Gastron, H. Charles J. Godfray, Rhys E. Green, Paul H. Harvey, Brett House, Sandra Knapp, Noëlle F. Kümpel, David W. Macdonald, Georgina M. Mace, James Mallett, Adam MatthewsRobert M. May, Owen Petchey, Andy Purvis, Dilys Roe, Kamran Safi, Kerry Turner, Matt Walpole, Robert Watson, Kate E. Jones, Robert Watson

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

226 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are designed to inspire efforts to improve people's lives by, among other priorities, halving extreme poverty by 2015 (1). Analogously, concern about global decline in biodiversity and degradation of ecosystem services (2) gave rise in 1992 to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). The CBD target “to achieve by 2010 a significant reduction of the current rate of biodiversity loss” was incorporated into the MDGs in 2002. Our lack of progress toward the 2010 target (3, 4) could undermine achievement of the MDGs and poverty reduction in the long term. With increasing global challenges, such as population growth, climate change, and overconsumption of ecosystem services, we need further integration of the poverty alleviation and biodiversity conservation agendas.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1502-1503
Number of pages2
JournalScience
Volume325
Issue number5947
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2009

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