Biodiversity is closely linked to livelihoods, quality of life and cultural continuity and survival. As such, biodiversity initiatives can greatly enhance peoples’ wellbeing. However, they can also adversely impact people and exacerbate inequities.
Conservation projects, particularly protected areas, have a dark history of dispossession and exclusion that has, in too many cases, contributed to the marginalization of vulnerable groups and the displacement of Indigenous Peoples. Besides issues of environmental and social justice, adverse social impacts can ultimately jeopardize the success of biodiversity initiatives.
Canada is currently aiming to conserve 25 per cent of its lands, and its oceans, by 2025, and 30 per cent of each by 2030. At the end of 2021, Canada had conserved 13.5 per cent of its terrestrial area, and 13.9 per cent of its marine territory. To achieve these targets, Canada will have to quickly implement new initiatives on a large scale.
Canada is home to an increasingly culturally diverse population with differing values. It is also home to over 1.8 million Indigenous Peoples representing five per cent of its population that include over 600 First Nations, the Métis Peoples and the Inuit who, unfortunately, continue to be disproportionately represented in indicators of low socioeconomic status. If Canada is to reach its conservation targets in an environmentally and socially just way, it is imperative that it fully assesses and meaningfully addresses potential adverse social impacts of proposed biodiversity initiatives.
Global Recognition of the Need for Social Inclusion
Unfortunately, extreme social outcomes of biodiversity initiatives continue to be an issue in many developing countries. In addition, conflicts surrounding competing uses of resources are becoming more prevalent throughout the world, for example with the intensification of land and ocean grabbing.
The Convention on Biological Diversity has long recognized that biodiversity is an issue that requires the incorporation of social considerations. It has been a leader in promoting Indigenous rights through the inclusion of article 8 (j), which states that each contracting party shall, “subject to its national legislation, respect, preserve and maintain knowledge, innovations and practices of indigenous and local communities embodying traditional lifestyles relevant for the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity (…)”.
The increasing use in biodiversity initiatives of frameworks that adopt a social-ecological perspective - frameworks that take into account linkages between social and ecological systems - is a significant advance. These include frameworks such as ecosystem services, social-ecological resilience and adaptive capacity. However, these frameworks are insufficient on their own to appropriately address potential adverse social and cultural impacts. Indeed, they have been criticized for not adequately paying attention to issues of power, competing values, social diversity, and human agency. Moreover, improved resilience and adaptation at a system level does not automatically translate into benefits for local people.
A focus on peoples’ well-being can overcome these gaps, however the analyses must be rigorously grounded in theory and reality. Such a framework must be comprehensive and allow the incorporation of different worldviews and values. The social well-being framework has recently garnered a lot of attention as a complementary framework that can bridge material considerations such as ecosystem functions and livelihood outcomes - which are typically the focus of biodiversity analyses - and social and cultural considerations.
The social well-being framework is simple, yet both thorough and inclusive. It features three dimensions: material (basic needs such as food and shelter, physical health, and ecosystem services such as clean air and water), relational (social interactions, networks of support and obligation, collective actions, and relationships involved in peoples’ social, political, and cultural identities), and subjective (cultural values, norms, trust, confidence, and belief systems). Furthermore, as opposed to many other well-being frameworks, the social well-being framework is not prescriptive. It includes how people define the dimensions themselves, avoiding the trap of excluding important aspects due to social or cultural bias. For example, in many Indigenous cultures, the relational dimension may also include relations to non-human beings.
A social well-being approach can uncover a wide range of motivating factors for peoples’ behaviour and important social factors that are often overlooked in biodiversity initiatives such as agency, capacity, identity, aspirations, norms, values, and personal preferences. Importantly, it allows the consideration of issues which are not necessarily aligned with biodiversity preservation and social-ecological resilience.
Combining the social well-being framework with other frameworks such as ecosystem services, social-ecological resilience and adaptive capacity in biodiversity initiatives can thus make both social and ecological trade-offs more transparent, thereby avoiding unforeseen adverse social impacts. By doing so, it can ensure that biodiversity initiatives are effective, environmentally, and socially just, and provide benefits to all.
