Increasing evidence—synthesized in this paper—shows that economic growth contributes to biodiversity loss via greater resource consumption and higher emissions. Nonetheless, a review of international biodiversity and sustainability policies shows that the majority advocate economic growth. Since improvements in resource use efficiency have so far not allowed for absolute global reductions in resource use and pollution, we question the support for economic growth in these policies, where inadequate attention is paid to the question of how growth can be decoupled from biodiversity loss. Drawing on the literature about alternatives to economic growth, we explore this contradiction and suggest ways forward to halt global biodiversity decline. These include policy proposals to move beyond the growth paradigm while enhancing overall prosperity, which can be implemented by combining top‐down and bottom‐up governance across scales. Finally, we call the attention of researchers and policy makers to two immediate steps: acknowledge the conflict between economic growth and biodiversity conservation in future policies; and explore socioeconomic trajectories beyond economic growth in the next generation of biodiversity scenarios.

中文翻译：

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超越经济增长的生物多样性政策


本文综合的越来越多的证据表明，经济增长通过增加资源消耗和增加排放而导致生物多样性丧失。尽管如此，对国际生物多样性和可持续性政策的审查表明，大多数政策主张经济增长。由于资源利用效率的提高迄今尚未实现全球资源利用和污染的绝对减少，因此我们对这些政策对经济增长的支持提出质疑，这些政策对如何将增长与生物多样性丧失脱钩的问题关注不够。我们借鉴有关经济增长替代方案的文献，探讨了这一矛盾，并提出了阻止全球生物多样性下降的方法。其中包括超越增长范式同时增强整体繁荣的政策建议，这些建议可以通过跨规模的自上而下和自下而上的治理相结合来实施。最后，我们呼吁研究人员和政策制定者立即采取两个步骤：在未来的政策中承认经济增长与生物多样性保护之间的冲突；并探索下一代生物多样性情景中经济增长之外的社会经济轨迹。