Photo: Florin Iorganda Most biodiversity in the world resides outside protected areas on lands and in waters dedicated to various economic production activities, including agriculture, forestry, fisheries, mining and tourism. The integration, or ‘mainstreaming’, of biodiversity-management objectives into these sectors constitutes a key vehicle for achieving sound biodiversity management. If these industries see biodiversity maintenance as a negative balance sheet item, then the ecosystems will likely be transformed and their biodiversity lost. Thus, communities and businesses need to be persuaded of the link between the value of ecosystem goods and services, and sustainable economic development; UNDP ‘mainstreaming’ projects help them understand that link. UNDP is tackling this challenge through pilot activities in receptive private sectors and communities ready to invest in conservation. Partnerships with large, medium and small companies, producer groups, governments and communities will be pivotal if biodiversity loss is to be halted.

Key mainstreaming activities include:

1. Developing accountable decision-making frameworks and institutions that are able to govern ecosystem and natural resource use.
2. Developing sound development policies that address biodiversity loss.
3. Building leadership and skills within the institutions responsible for biodiversity management, including the economic sector institutions that influence how biodiversity is used.
4. Testing and adapting resource use management on-the-ground, to transform economic production patterns and activities so as to avoid, reduce or offset the threats they pose to biodiversity.

UNDP also stimulates the development of Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) schemes, which compensate resource managers for the costs they incur in protecting biodiversity. Such schemes aim at internalizing the benefits derived from better biodiversity management in production practices to provide an incentive for sound stewardship.

At the same time, UNDP assists communities and entrepreneurs to access ‘green’ markets that value commodities that have been produced in a biodiversity-friendly manner.

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