Developing Linkages to Preserve Biodiversity

Abstract

Like a bulldozer clearing a forest, an expanding human population has consistently devastated the other species in its path and left ecological degradation in its wake.1 For a little over a century, pockets of humanity have tried with limited success to reduce this impact.2 The international community has given legal recognition to biodiversity loss as a global problem for at least forty years and has created several major regimes tasked with supporting biodiversity preservation. However, international biodiversity targets go unmet, and species loss continues on a scale of mass extinction.3 In terms of actual species conservation across the globe, international biodiversity law is not working.4 Our common understanding of the importance of biodiversity, and of the forces causing its loss, is much stronger today than it was when biodiversity conventions were signed in 1972 and even 1992. This knowledge results, in large part, from...