A Gap Analysis of the Contribution of Socio-Ecological Production Landscapes and Seascapes to the Sustainable Development Goals

Primary production, including agriculture, aquaculture, forestry and fisheries is the strongest driver of biodiversity loss globally. It can, however, contribute to biodiversity conservation if wisely managed such as in ‘Satoyama’ and ‘Satoumi’, or socio-ecological production landscapes and seascapes (SEPLS), where production activities support biodiversity and vice versa. Experts working with SEPLS across the world recognize the contribution of SEPLS to multiple sustainability objectives in addition to biodiversity, such as those envisaged in the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). However, it is not known whether the existing global framework for implementing the SDGs can capture such contributions. We quantified the gap in the contribution of SEPLS to the SDGs from two different viewpoints by comparing data from a synthesis of the perceived contribution of SEPLS to SDGs expressed by the experts at the Expert Thematic Workshop on Landscape Approaches for the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework, and a systematic evaluation of 30 projects in SEPLS supported by the Satoyama Development Mechanism referring to the existing indicators of the SDGs. Our results show that the current indicators of the SDGs are not effective to recognize the importance of SEPLS in achieving several SDGs, particularly SDG 6 (clean water and sanitation) and 13 (climate action), based on the experts’ observed experiences with SEPLS. On this basis, we highlight a need to develop landscape-scale localized indicators of the SDGs that can effectively capture the efforts and progress in SEPLS, and suggest priorities for the development of such localized indicators of the SDGs that could be commonly used for SEPLS across the world.