Global Security and Sustainability

Conservation and Sustainable Development

This grantmaking area is dedicated to conserving biodiversity -- the species, ecosystems and ecological processes that make up the web of life -- over the long term and to increasing the understanding of the integral relationship between the health of the biosphere and human well-being. Work is supported in a select number of tropical biogeographic zones, chosen for their richness of species diversity, endemism, limited institutional capacity, and level of threat. MacArthur also supports research in investigating trade-offs that exist between human well-being and biodiversity conservation goals and exploring approaches to conservation that address the impacts of climate change.

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FROM THE FIELD Peru Establishes First Environmental Ministry May 27, 2008 MacArthur grantee the Peruvian Society for Environmental Law (SPDA) is expected to help develop the regulatory framework for Peru’s first Ministry of Environment. The Ministry, announced by President Alan Garcia earlier this month, is widely seen as an historic step to defining and implementing a cogent environmental policy in one of the world’s biodiversity hotspots. SPDA, a recipient of the MacArthur Award for Creative and Effective Institutions, has a long history of providing technical and legal assistance to the government on environmental issues and likely will focus its work with the new Ministry on policy responses to climate change impacts.  More From the Field