Future priorities in science policy for biodiversity studies: a comment on the target review by Luc De Meester and Steven Declerck

Abstract

Many scientists are frustrated by the fact that the critical status of many biota and species does not seem to be appreciated by political decisionmakers throughout the world. Many decisions remain economy-driven and do not take into account science-based insights. It is often neglected that the necessary trade-off between protection and the need of ‘feeding the poor’ is biased by short-term goals, which in the long run have an adverse effect. It is the persistence of setting the priority to narrow short-term economic interests vs. more holistic sustainable goals (both economic and biodiversity-oriented) that impedes the change to the better. Clearly, the value of biodiversity per se and of natural resources needs to be incorporated in our political action. Such cost–benefit calculations are not easy to undertake to evaluate protective actions in economic terms. However, it is of fundamental importance to find a viable compromise to implement the societal and economic value of nature in economy-driven political processes, to develop a new attitude for approaching the dramatic loss of biodiversity.