Identifying and ending subsidies for extinction

February 19, 2020

A decade ago, the world’s governments pledged to stop subsidizing activities that drive species to extinction. It sounded good—but in the years since, little has been accomplished.

And if halting biodiversity loss indeed requires transformative economic change, then confronting subsidies is a necessary next step write researchers led by 2018 Wall Scholar Jessica Dempsey (UBC Geography) in the journal Conservation Letters

Joining Dempsey is Tara Martin (UBC Forestry) and U. Rashid Sumaila (UBC Biology), they call for “subsidy accountability”: a thorough evaluation of all the ways in which government funding for economic development impacts the natural world.