Third World Network
Why have efforts to halt the destruction of biodiversity largely failed?
A major reason is the failure to confront the root causes of the biodiversity crisis, resulting in outcomes that are incremental, insufficient, or ineffective. As such, the emphasis has been on reforming rather than transforming dominant systems.
Responses which “tinker at the edges” often end up legitimizing, entrenching, or even expanding the very systems that drive biodiversity destruction. For example, biodiversity offsetting schemes often permit the very activities that imperil ecosystems while giving the impression of environmental protection.
Two recent IPBES assessments—the Transformative Change Assessment and the Nexus Assessment—offer key insights into why states continue to fall short of biodiversity goals.
The Transformative Change Assessment emphasizes three key underlying causes of biodiversity destruction: (a) disconnection from and domination over nature and people; (b) concentrated power and wealth; and (c) the prioritization of short-term, individual, and material gains. As such, vested interests, backed by substantial financial and political power, maintain these structures, often co-opting or neutralizing attempts to enact change.
Global power imbalances, especially in the international monetary and financial system, exacerbate structural inequalities. Disparities within and between developed and developing countries further entrench inequalities. Addressing biodiversity destruction thus requires confronting underlying drivers such as the inequitable global debt architecture, transnational tax regimes, and the extractive logics embedded in trade and investment systems. The Nexus Assessment goes so far as to suggest that strategies not traditionally focused on or explicitly aimed at biodiversity—such as transforming economic and financial systems—can often yield greater biodiversity benefits than conventional conservation measures.
Transformative change thus requires curbing the power of corporate actors, financial elites, and the governments that enable them, while redistributing power to those most affected by ecological collapse, including Indigenous Peoples, local communities, and other rights-holders. Real mechanisms for redistribution—such as through tax and debt justice, the democratization of economic institutions, and payments for ecological debts—are needed. These efforts must also firmly uphold land rights and other human rights.
Based on Transform, not reform: Transformative change to stop the biodiversity crisis
https://www.twn.my/title2/briefing_papers/twn/Transformative change TWNBP Oct 2025 Steichen.pdf
