Although it is widely recognised that biodiversity is at the heart of delivering sustainable development, the ongoing economic crisis that the world is facing today is an unmistakable reflection of the failure to establish the interdependence between biodiversity, ecosystem services, economic development, and institutional changes. Therefore, economic benefits and biodiversity conservation are often seen as distinct objectives by economists who remind us of the need for technological developments for achieving real economic growth while the conservation community reminds us of the finiteness of biodiversity resources available to provide the inputs for economic activity. Mr. Pavan Sukhdev, lead author of the study “The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity,” through his remark “we are trying to navigate uncharted and turbulent waters with an old and defective economic compass and this is affecting our ability to forge a sustainable economy in harmony with nature’’ aptly portends the need for synchronising economic development with conservation and sustainable management of biodiversity.

This course aims to focus on how impact assessment can help to protect ecosystems from development and how to invest in managing ecosystems for development.