Understanding the Evidence on Climate Change, Biodiversity and Livelihoods
The world will likely not meet the target of limiting temperature rise to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. Uncontrolled global warming threatens not only livelihoods, but also animal and plant species. Evidence-informed decision-making is required to mitigate and adapt to the climate change and biodiversity loss crises without negatively affecting communities’ livelihoods. 3ie and the UK Government’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) are producing a series of synthesis projects to understand the evidence base to inform future programming and research.
Background
Climate change and biodiversity loss are interconnected. Individuals and communities in low- and middle-income countries are disproportionately affected by extreme weather events and by major changes in local climatic environments, which can harm households’ income-generating activities. Similarly, biodiversity loss in these countries represents substantial negative shocks to individuals’ livelihoods. With the ecosystem getting disrupted, the communities that depend on them for livelihood activities and other necessities are significantly impacted.
Our partnership with Defra envisages the design of evidence-informed climate action aiming for the best possible outcomes for the environment, biodiversity and people in line with international frameworks such as the Paris Agreement, the Global Biodiversity Framework, and the Sustainable Development Goals.
The design of effective mitigation and adaptation programs against the effects of climate change and biodiversity loss requires accessing, analyzing and drawing from the most recent quality evidence. In this partnership, Defra has funded two evidence gap maps (EGMs) and a systematic review (SR) to capture, understand and summarize the evidence available. This body of evidence can help inform future programming based on what we know works (or is more likely to work), as well as build up future research to fill in the gaps of what we don’t know yet.
Systematic review
The effect of land management policies on the environment and people
Based on the evidence from the Climate Change and Biodiversity EGM (see map), we are conducting a systematic review (SR) focused on three key land management programs in low- and middle-income countries:
- protected areas
- land rights
- community-based or decentralized land management and monitoring
By assessing and bringing together individual studies, this SR will help us understand what works, for whom, how and at what cost can land management be an option for achieving a triple win: address climate change, reduce biodiversity loss, and decrease poverty. The findings of the SR will be available in 2025.
Evidence mapping
Casting a wider net to map the evidence on climate and biodiversity
Expanding the scope beyond land and forestry, the Climate Change and Biodiversity EGM focused on four natural systems and productive activities: (i) land and forests, (ii) agriculture and livestock, (iii) aquaculture and fisheries, and (iv) coasts and oceans. We considered rigorous studies of different instruments, such as regulatory frameworks and policies, land rights, financial incentives, and market-oriented interventions.
The online map includes more than 1,600 studies, mainly evaluating land and forests, and agriculture and livestock programs. Studies on aquaculture and fisheries, as well as coasts and oceans, are limited. While most studies measured short-term outcomes (e.g., knowledge or management practices of natural resources), final climate outcomes (e.g., GHG emissions or species complexity) are under-explored. Likewise, only a few studies reported both environmental and human welfare measures, preventing us from learning potential trade-offs. We did not identify many high-confidence systematic reviews, all of which were published at least five years ago, which provides an opportunity to conduct high-quality reviews with the most updated evidence in this space.
Updating the evidence on land-use change and forestry programs
Following an EGM we published in 2016, we updated this EGM in 2024 with the latest evidence of the effects of programs and policies on land-use change and forestry. We considered programs and policies likely to have an effect on GHG emissions and grouped them into five categories: area protection and management; law and policies; incentives; training, education and information to promote sustainable practices and technology; and infrastructure.
While we found more evidence than in the original EGM, we identified the same clusters of studies as eight years ago: the evidence remains concentrated in certain countries, interventions, and outcomes. Moreover, we see that high-confidence systematic reviews in this field are still a challenge. Better and more diversified evidence is needed in this space.