Economics and biological diversity : executive summary and guidelines for using incentives

Lake Victoria, shared by five East African countries, supports over 45 million people through fisheries, water supply, and agriculture. Declining water quality, rising pollution, and the absence of a shared evidence base made coordinated basin management difficult. To address this, the Lake Victoria Basin Commission (LVBC), with GIZ support under the EAC4Nature project, developed the first-ever State of the Basin Report (SoBR).

The approach combines joint water quality sampling at 44 stations across three countries, consultations with all five Partner States – Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda, and integration of findings into the Lake Victoria Basin Water Information System (LVB-WIS).

The SoBR follows a five-year cycle as a shared baseline for planning, policy, and investment. It identifies Nature-based Solutions – wetland rehabilitation, reforestation, and catchment restoration – as the most cost-effective pathway to improve water quality and build climate resilience. All five Partner States endorsed the report.

In Uruguay, against a backdrop of the loss of habitat critical to biodiversity, the degradation of vulnerable ecosystems and soils due to the intensification and expansion of livestock and agricultural activities, poor grassland management practices, and pollution of water bodies and wetlands, the project aimed to implement actions to strengthen systemic, financial, and institutional capacities for biodiversity conservation and sustainable land management, thereby improving the effectiveness and sustainability of the management of protected areas, associated productive lands, and human well-being. This was achieved through: the establishment of a regulatory, financial, and institutional framework for biodiversity conservation and land degradation neutrality; Implementation of biodiversity and land conservation measures at pilot sites; and Knowledge management, monitoring and evaluation, and learning, to promote dialogue between public and private stakeholders.

Mongolia’s pastoral communities are increasingly exposed to climate-related hazards, particularly recurrent droughts and dzud that cause severe livestock losses and threaten rural livelihoods. To strengthen climate resilience and disaster preparedness, the UNDP ADAPT Project implemented a climate-resilient fodder storage solution in Khovd, Zavkhan, Dornod and Sukhbaatar provinces.

The solution established and rehabilitated hay and feed storage facilities in climate-vulnerable areas identified through risk assessments using climate, vegetation and livestock mortality data. In total, 48 storage facilities were developed to improve emergency fodder reserves and ensure timely access to feed during harsh winter and spring conditions.

The intervention combines risk-informed planning, resilient infrastructure, local participation and institutional collaboration. It has improved herders’ adaptive capacity, reduced vulnerability to climate shocks, strengthened food security for livestock, and enhanced local disaster risk reduction.

Ethiopia’s smallholder farmers continue to face large yield gaps despite decades of fertiliser use and agricultural research investment. A key constraint has been blanket fertiliser recommendations: uniform rates applied nationwide without accounting for local soils, agro‑ecological conditions, or crop diversity. This one‑size‑fits‑all approach leads to systematic misapplication, with over‑use in some areas and under‑use in others. As a result, Ethiopian wheat farmers achieve only 35-45% of potential yields, while more than 60 years of agronomic research data remained fragmented. The Supporting Soil Health Interventions in Ethiopia (SSHI) project, co‑funded by BMZ and the Gates Foundation and implemented by GIZ with the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT, EIAR, and the Ministry of Agriculture, addressed this gap by developing Ethiopia’s first Site‑Specific Fertiliser Decision Support Tool. Using machine learning, the tool delivers localised fertiliser recommendations, validated across hundreds of farms.

Strengthening Resilience of Coastal Communities through the Local Early Action Plan-Climate Change Adaptation (LEAP-CCA) is a community-driven initiative in Mabul Island, Sabah, aimed at reducing climate change vulnerabilities through practical adaptation measures.

Located within the Coral Triangle, Mabul Island is rich in marine biodiversity but highly vulnerable to sea level rise, coastal erosion, wave levels during monsoon and typhoon. These threats affect critical ecosystems, fisheries, tourism, and local livelihoods.

Through collaboration between local communities, government agencies, NGOs, and tourism operators, vulnerable resources were identified and targeted adaptation actions developed. These include rainwater harvesting systems, coral restoration, and improved tourism management. The initiative has strengthened community awareness, improved local participation in climate action, and enhanced the resilience of ecosystems and livelihoods.

The ecOcamp, developed by ecOceanica since 2021, is an immersive training program in marine research and conservation, implemented in collaboration with fishing communities in northern Peru. Through a field-based theoretical and practical experience, participants engage directly in marine megafauna monitoring, including aquatic censuses, sea turtle nesting surveys, whale shark registration and photo-identification, and fisheries assessments.

The program combines applied scientific training, participation in real research processes, and collaboration with artisanal fishers, fostering understanding of both ecological and social dimensions of marine conservation. It also integrates a citizen science approach, enabling participants to contribute to long-term scientific data collection.

Beyond capacity building, the model supports the financial sustainability of research activities and generates direct economic benefits for local communities, strengthening the link between science, community, and marine biodiversity conservation.