Biodiversity underpins all life and provides vital benefits to our societies and economies. Yet despite this, pressures from land-use change, over-exploitation of natural resources, pollution and climate change are contributing to an alarming loss of living diversity. Since 1970 one tenth of the world’s terrestrial biodiversity and one third of freshwater biodiversity have been wiped out. We are on course to lose another 10% of terrestrial species by 2050.

Achieving sustainable development for “our people, our planet, our prosperity” is one of the top policy priorities of our time. Mainstreaming biodiversity and the value of our natural ecosystems into economic growth and development objectives is a crucial element of this, as reflected by Sustainable Development Goals 14 and 15 on Life under Water and Life on Land, among others. Strategic Goal A of the 2011-2020 Aichi Biodiversity Targets under the Convention on Biological Diversity is to address the underlying causes of biodiversity loss by mainstreaming biodiversity across government and society.

Mainstreaming biodiversity across government and society is crucial for meeting many of the Sustainable Development Goals. This chapter provides an overview of the interlinkages between biodiversity and sustainable development and highlights assessment frameworks and entry points for biodiversity mainstreaming. Drawing on experiences and lessons learned from 16 of some of the most biodiverse countries in the world, the chapter concludes with the key messages and good practice insights from across the report.

This chapter highlights some of the key features that need to be considered in mainstreaming biodiversity at the national level. This includes reciprocal mainstreaming of biodiversity and development across key strategies and plans including National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans, National Development Plans and green growth strategies, among others. Moreover, it examines institutional co-ordination and the establishment of clear roles and responsibilities for biodiversity mainstreaming, the role of data in fostering biodiversity mainstreaming, and how biodiversity is being mainstreaming in national budgets.

This chapter examines biodiversity mainstreaming in the agriculture, forestry and fisheries sectors. It highlights the inter-linkages between biodiversity and each of these sectors and then the types of policy instruments that can be used to mainstream biodiversity considerations within them. Drawing on experiences from the 16 focus countries, various examples illustrate opportunities and remaining challenges.

This chapter examines the key role development co-operation plays in supporting biodiversity conservation and sustainable use, as well as integrating biodiversity and ecosystem services into decision making in partner countries. Besides providing financial resources and expertise to biodiversity projects, development co-operation also supports the creation of enabling policy frameworks for biodiversity mainstreaming at the national and sector level. The chapter also analyses the extent to which biodiversity is being prioritised in development co-operation portfolios and operations.

Monitoring and evaluation of biodiversity mainstreaming is key for enabling the assessment of progress over time, and can therefore also play a key role in the deriving good practices that can be shared. This chapter provides a conceptual framework for indicator use and a review of existing and emerging indicators relevant for mainstreaming. Using these as a basis, an overview of possible indicators that can be used to monitor and evaluate biodiversity mainstreaming across the range of policy responses is presented.