The root causes of biodiversity loss

The Root Causes project described in this publication is an innovative programme designed and implemented by WWF's Macroeconomics Program Office to analyse and address the root causes of biodiversity loss. It makes two important contributions. First, it develops an Analytical Approach to help identify, analyse, and organize the many complex factors that drive biodiversity loss. This new approach is based on the straightforward assumption that our success in addressing this problem depends on our ability to understand and act upon the forces driving it. These forces are growing ever more complex, and so the development of tools to understand what these factors are and how they relate to one another is especially important. The second important contribution this publication makes is in the development of recommendations for how institutions and governments can, and should, address the root causes of biodiversity loss. These recommendations are firmly grounded in the realization that biodiversity loss is occurring because the factors that are acting to deplete it are far stronger than the forces acting to conserve it. (From Foreword)