The integration of natural capital into development policies

In response to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, there has been a rising awareness of the need to address simultaneously the preservation of natural capital stocks and poverty alleviation at multiple scales. Focusing on tropical forest-rich developing countries, the article overviews the extent to which natural capital considerations are integrated into existing development policies and interventions. The review finds that the explicit consideration of natural resources is left out of many commonly applied development interventions, leading to suboptimal and unsustainable outcomes. The interventions that do tackle both development and conservation goals are often not coordinated and are implemented at a site-by-site basis, without providing the socially efficient levels of natural capital stocks or ensuring the long-term sustainability of the development and conservation impacts. Bringing in perspectives from development economics, environmental economics, and applied conservation, this article makes the case for a better integration of development and conservation goals in interventions in developing countries and outlines the emerging frontiers for research and policy.