Land and biodiversity policies/Policy issues

Relevant overviews

Policy interventions overview

Policy issues

Baseline developments

Components of the IMAGE framework that address land use and biodiversity include Agricultural economy , Forest management, Land-use allocation and Livestock systems system.

Policy interventions

As described in the parts above, there is a large range of interventions that could affect land use and reduce biodiversity loss, which are introduced in the respective models in the IMAGE framework (mainly in the agriculture and landuse Components, see Framework overview and the Policy intervention Tables in the parts above).

Various studies have made a comprehensive analysis of potential land-use policies, using the IMAGE framework. For instance, the report Rethinking Global Biodiversity Strategies (PBL, 2010) shows that a combination of the interventions mentioned here may have sufficient potential to reverse the trend of biodiversity loss. See also Rethinking Biodiversity Strategies (2010) project.

Roads from Rio+20 (PBL, 2012) formulated three packages of interventions to halt biodiversity loss by 2030 (the figure below). The three sustainability scenarios differ fundamentally in approach and indicate that substantial efforts are needed in many areas. In all cases, increases in agricultural productivity are needed (the figure below). See also Roads from Rio+20 (2012) project.

Biodiversity is projected to decline further in the baseline scenario (left). Various measures in the demand system, the production system and in land-use regulation contribute to reducing biodiversity loss in the sustainability scenarios (right).