Economic development 'can restore lost biodiversity'
Economic development can lead to increased biodiversity restoration
in Sub-Saharan Africa, on a similar scale to its loss due to
development, according to a study.
Biodiversity loss is one of the important environmental threats that
humanity faces, the study says, and it disproportionately harms the
world's poorest people, who are less able to adjust to it, as they have
limited access to alternatives then using natural resources for
livelihoods.
Previous studies for both developed and developing countries have
shown that increased economic development initially leads to loss in
biodiversity and later to decreased loss — but not at a level that
restores the earlier biodiversity loss.
Yet the relationship between economic development and biodiversity
remains largely untested in Sub-Saharan Africa as it has been overlooked
in the literature, say the researchers from the Center for International
Development Research and Studies (CERDI), in France.
They used country-level data from 48 Sub-Saharan African countries on
gross domestic product adjusted for differences in cost of living as an
indicator of development and the percentage of threatened species of
mammals and birds, to measure biodiversity loss.
Using a modelling technique that considers factors including the
proximity to neighbouring countries, a country's population density, and
agricultural land area, they analysed the relationship between the GDP
and biodiversity loss over a 20-year period, from 1992 to 2011.
They found that the conservation of birds, but not mammals, increased
as incomes rose.
Conservation of birds tends to be easier, they say in a CERDI working
paper, which may explain the difference.
Ariane Manuela Amin, lead author of the study, tells SciDev.Net the
findings suggest that development and conservation are not strictly
separate policy realms, even in the context of underdevelopment in
Sub-Saharan Africa.
But she adds they do not advocate promoting development without also
looking at conservation needs.
Lameed Gbolagade Stephen Akeem, associate professor in the department
of wildlife and fisheries management at the University of Ibadan,
Nigeria, says: "Conservation of biodiversity and a country's economic
development are interconnected and complex, but African countries need
to pursue both to enrich species and to ensure that poverty does not
force people to hunt animals and destroy ecosystems".
He urges African governments and communities to promote and abide by
cultural practices that recognise some forests and rivers as sacred
places, in order to help sustain biodiversity.
Philip Mulama Nyangweso, the East and Central
African representative of the African Association of Agricultural
Economists, and a senior lecturer at Moi University, Kenya, cautions:
"African leaders and communities need to put mechanisms in place to
ensure that as we grow our economies, we don't ruin the environment".
He cites the progress being made by some countries, such as
Kenya, in designing policies that consider the environmental impact,
including threats to biodiversity, in development projects.
This article has been produced by SciDev.Net's Sub-Saharan
Africa news desk.
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