Ecosystems and human well‐being in the Sustainable Development Goals

Over the coming months, the global community will negotiate and agree upon the post-2015 UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). These goals build on the experiences of the Millennium Development Goals (2000–2015) and will provide the guiding framework for aligning global investments in social, economic, and environmental development over the next 15 years. Despite a more inclusive process and expanded scope as compared with previous efforts, the proposed SDGs have been criticized for their weak scientific basis, vague and unquantifiable targets, and, we add, a failure to embrace potential synergies between the environment and human well-being. A major opportunity is being missed in the SDGs to transform the dialogue around the environment, from its current conception as a constraining factor to an enabling factor for achieving sustainable development – especially in rural landscapes. Of the proposed set of 17 goals and 169 targets put forward by the UN Open Working Group, two goals are dedicated to protecting marine and terrestrial ecosystems and biodiversity. These goals are directed toward traditional conservation objectives and fail to address the environmental dimensions of human development. This focus on conservation-oriented goals is indicative of a much larger discourse in which the environment is depicted as a “victim” of development. While development organizations increasingly aim to reduce negative environmental impacts in their work, this perspective falls short of mobilizing environmental conservation and restoration as a means to help eradicate poverty. We suggest instead that environmental health and human health are fundamentally linked, and that a vibrant environment can directly contribute to improving human well-being. This shift in perspectives stems from a growing body of work on ecosystem services and socioecological systems. In our opinion, a more relevant approach to enhancing human development through the SDGs is to concentrate on strengthening specific ecosystem-service-related targets in the poverty reduction, food security, human health, and water goals, as each of these depend heavily on ecosystems in order to be sustainably achieved. Nowhere is this reframing more critical, and more possible, than in agricultural landscapes. Agricultural lands now cover over 40% of the global land surface area, thus forming the largest terrestrial biome. They are the ecosystem at the center of human livelihoods. Agriculture and the environment have been presented as diametrically opposed because, in most cases, the former has destroyed natural habitats and the ecosystem services they provide. However, an increasing body of ecological and environmental research is showing that agricultural landscapes can also be important providers of these services. Thoughtful design and management of biodiversity and ecological processes in fields and farms can produce and enhance multiple benefits upon which humans depend – such as the production of nutritious foods, clean water, and other regulating and cultural services – while also contributing to conservation. References to ecosystem services often conjure images of benefits provided by intact native ecosystems such as forests and wetlands. Nevertheless, management options in these systems are more limited than those in agricultural landscapes, which in our opinion offer the greatest opportunity to actively manage for multiple objectives. Such interventions can include: managing in-field biodiversity to enhance resilience to climate-related impacts (SDG1) and combat malnutrition (SDG2); planning landscape configuration to maximize multiple agroecosystem services such as pest control and pollination to improve food security (SDG2) and reduce disease risk (SDG3); or implementing riparian and field margin buffers to secure clean water (SDG6). The characteristics that make the environment an enabling factor for improving human prosperity are often the same as those needed to meet conservation objectives: high diversity, viable populations of service-providing species, and managed variability. To facilitate the transition to an “environment for well-being” approach to development, scientists need to better articulate the links between ecosystem-service drivers of change and their contributions to global development goals. We are only beginning to scratch the surface of our understanding of how the environment affects and supports human welfare. Many indicators of environmental quality exist, as do indicators of human well-being; what are critically needed are indicators that link the two. Conservation approaches, although necessary, do not go far enough to recognize and address global dependence on ecological systems. To be truly transformative, biodiversity and the environment must be put to use to help achieve development objectives. We recognize that ecosystem-service-based approaches alone will not fully realize the gains needed to support an expected global population of 9–11 billion; however, they should act as the starting point for interventions to sustainably address development targets.