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Anticipated impacts of achieving SDG targets on forests - a review

Carr, JA; Petrokofsky, G; Spracklen, DV; Lewis, SL; Roe, D; Trull, N; Vidal, A; ... Sallu, SM; + view all (2021) Anticipated impacts of achieving SDG targets on forests - a review. Forest Policy and Economics , 126 , Article 102423. 10.1016/j.forpol.2021.102423. Green open access

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Abstract

Sustainable development requires knowledge of trade-offs and synergies between environmental and non-environmental goals and targets. Understanding the ways in which positive progress in matters of development not directly concerned with the environment can affect the natural environment, whether for better or for worse, can allow policymakers and development agencies to avoid the negative impacts of their actions, while capitalising on mutually beneficial opportunities. Through a systematic review of the literature, we consider the impacts of UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) targets on forest ecosystems, and identify 63 targets associated with potentially beneficial, damaging or mixed (i.e. damaging and/or beneficial depending on context or location) impacts. Types of impact are not uniform within SDGs, nor necessarily within individual targets. Targets relating to energy and infrastructure are among the most damaging and best studied, while targets expected to potentially result in beneficial outcomes, typically associated with social progress and well-being, have been investigated to a much lesser degree, especially in the context of external interventions. Thirty-eight targets have some variation in the direction of their impacts (i.e. at least one record with mixed impacts, or two or more records with different directions), suggesting the potential to achieve beneficial over damaging impacts in many cases. We provide illustrative examples of a range of impacts and use our findings to provide recommendations for researchers, development agencies and policymakers.

Type: Article
Title: Anticipated impacts of achieving SDG targets on forests - a review
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1016/j.forpol.2021.102423
Publisher version: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.forpol.2021.102423
Language: English
Additional information: © 2021 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
Keywords: Sustainable development goals, Targets, Development intervention, Environmental trade-offs, Synergy, Forest
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of S&HS
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of S&HS > Dept of Geography
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10124152
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