Human Impacts on Biodiversity Conservation

Professor Sara Tjossem, Lecturer and Associate Director of Curriculum for the MPA-ESP program, has been advising the team that worked with The Nature Conservancy (TNC). The Nature Conservancy (TNC) is the largest conservation organization in the world. The group works in over 35 countries, where it owns 119 million acres and works with partners over broader landscapes. On the ground, TNC often works in remote areas where population density is low and rural-urban migration may be shifting people away. Students who worked on this project sought to unravel the complexities of how people interact with natural resources, the relationships between biodiversity loss and population growth, resource consumption, and poverty, as well as what a global conservation organization can do to affect such forces. The students performed a GIS analysis of current and future population density, consumption, poverty/income, and land use levels in the 50km surrounding TNC’s major projects in the 35 countries in which it works. The team then investigated the drivers of conservation threats using various sources of data, including TNC’s Conservation Projects database. Finally, after learning about TNC’s history, donor base and organizational culture, students developed recommendations for how and where TNC should address population growth, resource consumption, and poverty in their conservation work.