Abstract: The
Technical Advisory Group (TAG) on biodiversity, hereafter called Biodiversity
TAG, is composed of 25 international experts in ecology, biodiversity
indicators, agronomy, life cycle assessment, livestock production systems, and
environmental science. Their backgrounds, complementary between systems and
regions, allowed them to understand and address different perspectives.
The aim of the
methodology developed in these guidelines is to introduce a harmonized
international approach for assessing the impacts of livestock on biodiversity.
The livestock sector is a major user of natural resources (land in particular)
and an important contributor to pollution (e.g. causing nutrient losses,
increasing greenhouse gas emissions), which makes it one of the sectors with
the highest impact on biodiversity. At the same time, livestock production is
one of the few sectors with not only negative but also positive impacts on
biodiversity; therefore, the sector can pull two levers to improve its
biodiversity performance – mitigate harm and maximize benefits.
Many environmental
assessments of the livestock sector have not addressed biodiversity because of
its intrinsic complexity. These guidelines strive to include biodiversity in
environmental assessments, in order to increase the understanding of the
impacts of livestock on biodiversity and to reveal possible synergies or
trade-offs with other environmental criteria or Sustainable Development Goals
(SDGs). Several indicators in these guidelines are also of relevance for the UN
Decade on Ecosystem Restoration.
Full text: http://www.fao.org/3/ca9295en/CA9295EN.pdf