Understanding the economic recovery potential of investing in biodiversity in the Global South

The overall goal of this project is to enhance understanding of the short versus long-term economic recovery potential (ERP) of investments in biodiversity and have this knowledge inform economic, climate, and development policy in the Global South, where impacts of COVID and climate change are most severe but where the potential for biodiversity to support economic recovery is greatest.

The proposed research will investigate how social, economic, and ecological knowledge can be integrated to manage ecosystems so that they are healthy and resilient in a rapidly warming world. To do this, it will bring together evidence of the short-term ERP and longer-term development outcomes of investing in biodiversity-based nature-based solutions (NbS, i.e. the protection, restoration, and sustainable management of natural and semi-natural ecosystems).

Short-term ERP will include factors such as numbers of jobs created and retained, livelihoods, and economic multipliers (where changes in one economic variable cause a change in other related variables). Longer-term development outcomes include climate change adaptation, biodiversity conservation, and food and water security.

A wide range of stakeholders involved in the design of economic recovery and development policy in or for the Global South have identified five broad questions about the economic returns of investments in NbS (provided in the case for support). These include: What do robust, sustainable investments in biodiversity look like? How can trade-offs among different societal benefits be managed?

How can we ensure that those investing in biodiversity, whether to secure their supply chains or offset damage to the environment, have ambitious and credible pathways to sustainability and are not simply greenwashing business as usual? To address these and other key questions, we will synthesise evidence from an existing systematic map of the peer-reviewed and grey literature on the development outcomes of over 500 investments in nature.

The ultimate intended impact of this project is to ensure that public and private finance is channeled towards projects that have robust biodiversity and social safeguards and that can, as a result, deliver benefits to local people, the climate and natural ecosystems over the long term.