4/22/2020 Here's how we can balance conservation and development | World Economic Forum

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Here's how we can balance conservation

and development

By 2050, the world will need around 50% more food and energy, and 21% Image: Ed Wray
more water

16 Oct 2018

Heather Tallis
Global Managing Director and Lead Scientist for Strategy Innovation, The Nature Conservancy

Stephen Polasky
Regents Professor and Fesler-Lampert Professor of Ecological/Environmental Economics, University of
Minnesota

For too long, dire messages and gloomy assumptions about the fate of the planet have lent an
air of hopelessness to one of the biggest challenges facing society. Conservationists feel
stymied. Businesspeople feel villainized. We have come to accept the view that preserving the
planet and growing the economy are mutually exclusive.

But maybe this dichotomous view of human needs and conservation is itself the problem.
What if advancing conservation and human development is not an either-or proposition? What
if we can do better in both?

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The World Health Organization, the World Economic Forum and other organizations have
pointed to air pollution, climate change and water scarcity as some of the biggest threats to
human well-being. These are environmental challenges that also intersect with threats to
biodiversity.

By 2050, the world’s population is projected to be 10 billion. We’ll see accelerated impacts on
natural resources that intensify this challenge and others, such as the already harsh impacts of
climate change on both people and nature.

The question of whether we can advance both conservation and human development is the
driving force behind a new study by 13 institutions, including The Nature Conservancy and the
University of Minnesota. From the outset, we stepped back and reexamined the concept of
sustainability from the bottom-line up, so to speak.

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Taking an in-depth look with global systems models, we compared the status quo, business-
as-usual path we are headed down today against a version of sustainability based on realistic
and achievable changes in how we use energy, land and water. We discovered something
some might find surprising - hope.

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For our analyses, we incorporated leading projections in population and GDP growth, and
associated increases in energy (~50%), food (~50%) and domestic water use (~21%) by 2050.
We also looked at how increased production to meet these needs would affect global land and
water use, air quality, climate and fisheries.

We found that shifting how and where food and energy are produced can help us meet global
growth projections while achieving national habitat protection commitments, reducing
greenhouse gas emissions in line with the Paris Agreement climate targets, ending overfishing,
reducing water stress and dramatically improving air quality. By making changes to our
production systems, we can achieve a more sustainable future - a planet that can support the
10 billion people and millions of other life forms that will call Earth home by the middle of this
century.

One key requirement for achieving the more hopeful scenario is cooperation. Making the
necessary changes will require breaking out of our usual lanes of conservation, health,
development, economics and all the other sectors where we so often find ourselves confined.

Meeting our climate goals, for example, will require an aggressive effort to reduce fossil fuels
and the greenhouse gases that follow, from a projected 76% share of total energy in 2050 to
13%. We can do this with a smart combination of solar, wind and nuclear energy. And we can
buy ourselves the time needed to make this transition by investing in natural climate solutions
- conservation and land management strategies that maximize the carbon storage potential of
our landscapes and coasts.

We also anticipate an increase in food demand 54% above today’s levels in 2050, but we find
that increased demand can be met using less land than we use for agriculture today. Shifting
crops within agricultural regions to areas where they grow best can reduce water demands
and improve yields, while lowering water stress and pollution, and respecting food sovereignty
(a country’s ability to produce food as it does today). In addition, investments in soil health can
improve agricultural yields while also sequestering more carbon from the atmosphere and
supporting biodiversity.

Wind farm turbines in the Appalachian Mountains, West Virginia Image: Kent Mason

The key, of course, is making those changes soon. If we continue down our business-as-usual
path, we’ll see accelerated climate change, loss of habitats and biodiversity, greater water
insecurity and dangerous levels of air pollution. It’s a dark prospect for us and for nature.

Our analysis is not the first to address these questions, of course. A number of prominent
scientists and institutions have put forward thoughtful plans for a sustainable future. But often
such plans consider the needs of people and nature in isolation from one another, or are

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based on the assessment of limited sectors or geographies. What we’ve attempted to do is

consider global economic development and conservation needs together, holistically, in order
to find a viable, sustainable path forward.

The path we show is one of many possibilities. We provide this analysis as a contribution to
the shared evidence base needed to engage effectively, collaborate and make informed
decisions for the good of people and the planet. We welcome like-minded partners and we
invite productive critics to share their perspectives. Most of all, we encourage people from all
sectors of society to join the conversation, to fill gaps where they exist and to bring other
important considerations to our attention.

Conserving nature while providing water, food and energy for a growing human population is
possible. It is not an either-or proposition. But our scenario of a more sustainable future does
rely on one thing - fast action. Several of the expected changes assume progress will be well
underway by the end of the next decade, if not sooner. Success depends on our willingness
and ability to address economic growth and the future of the planet in a smart and
coordinated manner.

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Written by

Heather Tallis, Global Managing Director and Lead Scientist for Strategy Innovation, The Nature
Conservancy

Stephen Polasky, Regents Professor and Fesler-Lampert Professor of Ecological/Environmental Economics,

University of Minnesota

The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum.

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