Biodiversity and the IDB

Protecting biodiversity on any meaningful scale will require considerable money and leadership. Marc Dourojeanni, IDB principal environmental advisor, believes that the Bank can do a great deal to stem the growing wave of extinctions.

Why should the IDB be concerned about species extinction?
The Bank’s mission is to promote sustainable development and improve living standards. Species of plants and animals are essential to people both as goods, such as food, medicine, and construction materials, and as providers of indispensable services, such as carbon fixation, the hydrologic cycle, and soil protection. Every plant or animal represents natural capital. Every species has a role, although we may not know what that role is or give it proper recognition.

But there is also something else. The IDB is deeply committed to the region’s cultural and ethical development. The extinction of the creatures with which we share the earth amounts to an affront to humanity, comparable to acts of violence or the destruction of works of art.

GUANACOS (Photo: Brian Pinkerton)

What can institutions such as the IDB do to protect biodiversity?
A great deal! Most IDB operations include, or should include, measures to protect the environment and endangered species. In Brazil alone, the IDB and its counterparts invested $69 million over the last decade for 76 protected areas, most of which are located in biodiversity hotspots. Moreover, the IDB uses information from the originators of the hotspots concept in designing safeguards and funding protected areas.

What are the priorities for biodiversity conservation in the region?
The first priority is to create protected areas. The problem is that governments neither have money to buy the land nor people to manage it. Many experts believe that the multilateral banks must revise their policies to enable them to finance the purchase of land for reserves. On the second point, the World Bank and the Global Environmental Facility have created funds to finance the management of protected areas.