Biodiversity Leak

Biodiversity Leak Latest News

Recently, a study published in Science journal highlighted biodiversity leakages happening across the globe.

About Biodiversity Leak

• Biodiversity Leakage is a phenomenon where the displacement of nature-damaging human activities caused by protecting or restoring areas of land.
• In this process conservation policies in one region inadvertently drive environmental degradation in another region.
• It occurs when restrictions on agricultural production in conservation areas lead to increased demand for imports from other regions, often rich in biodiversity.
• Biodiversity leakage is undermining global efforts to halt biodiversity loss.
• There are concerns that large-scale conservation initiatives in regions like Europe and China are causing production shortfalls for agricultural commodities. 

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Measures to Mitigate Biodiversity Leakage

• Tracking changes in food or wood production within intervention areas as part of routine programme monitoring.
• Scrutinising projects that report near-zero losses in production to distinguish those with effective leakage mitigation from those with little or no conservation impact.
• Including explicit consideration of both local and long-range leakage in national and international conservation policies.
• Reducing demand for high-leakage goods and improving efficiencies in line with production decreases.
• Targeting conservation efforts in areas where biodiversity restoration will cause minimal displacement of production.
• Increasing yields within or near conservation project areas to offset losses.

Biodiversity Leak FAQs

 Q1. What causes loss of biodiversity?

Ans. This is largely due to human activities like deforestation, habitat fragmentation, and climate change. 

Q2. What is the meaning of biodiversity loss?

Ans. Biodiversity loss is the reduction of the variety of life in a given area.

Q3. What is called biodiversity?

Ans. Biodiversity is the variety of life on Earth, including the variety of genes, species, and ecosystems. 

Source: DTH