Biodiversity Conservation and Natural Resource Sustainability: Interlinkages and Future Directions

Abstract

Biodiversity conservation and the sustainable management of natural resources are frequently treated as separate policy domains, yet the ecological and socio-economic processes that connect them are inseparable. Healthy ecosystems underpin the provisioning, regulating, supporting and cultural services on which food systems, water security, climate stability and human wellbeing depend, while the manner in which societies extract, allocate and govern natural resources is among the principal determinants of biodiversity change. This critical review synthesises recent peer-reviewed and authoritative institutional literature to examine the conceptual foundations, direct and indirect drivers, ecological–economic interlinkages, conservation approaches, governance architecture and emerging monitoring tools that connect biodiversity conservation with natural resource sustainability. The review shows that land and sea use change remains the dominant proximate driver of biodiversity loss, followed by overexploitation, pollution, climate change and invasive alien species, and that these pressures interact with resource-intensive economic activity in mutually reinforcing ways. Protected areas, Indigenous- and community-led governance, ecosystem restoration and nature-based solutions each demonstrate measurable, though spatially uneven, effectiveness, while natural capital accounting, payments for ecosystem services and biodiversity finance mechanisms remain underdeveloped relative to the scale of the crisis. The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework and the Sustainable Development Goals provide converging but incompletely integrated policy architecture for aligning conservation and resource-use objectives. The review concludes that future progress depends on embedding biodiversity considerations within mainstream natural resource governance, strengthening cross-sectoral and multiscale nexus approaches, and closing persistent gaps in finance, monitoring capacity and equitable governance, particularly for Indigenous peoples and local communities.