Conserving Biodiversity for a Sustainable Future: Perspectives from the Satoyama Initiative

The Satoyama Initiative is endorsed by the decision of the Tenth Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD COP 10) in 2010. It is a global effort with the vision to “realize societies in harmony with nature” through promotion and conservation of “socio-ecological production landscapes and seascapes” (SEPLS). The International Partnership for the Satoyama Initiative (IPSI) is a partnership of organizations created in 2010 to further its implementation. The IPSI promulgates the SEPLS concept that adopts a holistic landscape and seascape approach involving multi-sectoral stakeholders who use the landscape and seascape for its multi-functional nature. The SEPLS concept, if well implemented for biodiversity conservation through sustainable use, can enhance nature’s contributions to people, thereby also enriching livelihoods and human well-being. Landscape and seascape management has to satisfy the three pillars of sustainable development— environmental, social and economic sustainability—to ensure both the well-being of the planet and humans for a sustainable future. Biodiversity is critical to the stability of our natural capital, which forms the basis of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) set in 2015 by the United Nations Agenda 2030 to eradicate poverty and achieve sustainable development by 2030 worldwide, ensuring that no one is left behind. Yet global biodiversity is in crisis. Responding to the urgent global call to take collective action for transformative change, the mainstreaming of biodiversity into related sectors including agriculture, forestry, fisheries, tourism, health, energy and mining, infrastructure, manufacturing and processing, is important to garner sustainable interventions and strategies using nature-based solutions. IPSI, through implementing integrated landscape and seascape approaches by applying SEPLS concepts, can bring about this transformative change and contribute to the next decade of biodiversity conservation to be set out by the CBD post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework.