IIED’s work on biodiversity dates back over 20 years – although it has not always been labelled as such. In the late 1980s and early 1990s the main focus came from IIED’s ground-breaking programme on environmental economics – a new discipline at the time.
Building on this earlier work, biodiversity was formally established as a new thematic area of work for iied in 1998 – with funding support from the MacArthur foundation – focusing on bioprospecting, wildlife tourism, communitybased wildlife management, and ‘policy that works’ for biodiversity and livelihoods. Today IIED’s biodiversity work ranges from agrobiodiversity to apes, from climate change to conservation, and from market mechanisms to mainstreaming. It includes issues critical to the Convention on Biological diversity such as access and benefit sharing, social assessment of protected areas and ecosystem-based adaptation.
This booklet provides a snapshot of our active projects as well as indicating the major themes where we are developing new areas of work. We look forward to collaborating with a wide range of organisations in our new and existing work and welcome your ideas and interest.
Cite this publication
Available at https://www.iied.org/g02776