Experts expose critical gap in global sustainable development agenda
While the lack of animal health and welfare in sustainable development goals compromises public health and the environment, a new report points the way forward.
A new report from the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) and the NYU Center for Environmental and Animal Protection (CEAP) warns that the current UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) systematically neglect animal welfare and health — a gap undermining progress on human health, environmental protection and social equity.
Despite growing international support for a One Health approach, which recognizes the interlinkages between human, animal, and environmental health, the current SDGs remain incomplete without the systematic inclusion of animal health and animal welfare. This omission matters because the SDG framework is the main international framework for achieving sustainable development in the 2015–2030 period.
The report to be published 9 December, Integrating Animal Health and Welfare into the 2030 Agenda and Beyond, warns that neglecting animal health and welfare can increase major global risks such as zoonotic disease emergence, antimicrobial resistance, biodiversity loss, and ecosystem degradation, while forgoing solutions that can benefit humans and animals at the same time.
The report comes during the 7th UN Environment Assembly, a biennial global gathering of ministers of the environment, in Nairobi, Kenya, dedicated to tackling global sustainable challenges.
“If we want a coherent and effective sustainable development agenda, we can no longer treat animal welfare as an afterthought,” said Cleo Verkuijl, a Senior Scientist at SEI and co-lead author of the report. “Improving the wellbeing of animals can help tackle the root causes of many global crises – from pandemics to climate change – while improving livelihoods and public health.”
The report identifies three pathways to integrate animal welfare into global governance:
- Strengthen animal welfare within current SDG implementation, for example by incorporating wildlife coexistence into urban planning (SDG 11).
- Introduce new SDG targets and indicators that reflect human-animal-environment interconnections, such as metrics to reduce zoonotic disease spillover or track the phase-out of harmful agricultural subsidies.
- Consider a dedicated SDG on animal health and welfare, elevating the issue to the level of other global priorities and reinforcing One Health principles.
“The world is not on track to meet the 2030 Agenda,” said Jeff Sebo, Director of CEAP and co-lead author of the report. “As UNEA-7 brings leaders together in Nairobi, we have an opportunity to take practical steps to embed animal health and welfare into global policy, strengthen action for the next five years, and shape a post-2030 agenda that benefits humans, animals, and the environment.”
Priority areas for action include transforming industrial animal agriculture and fishing systems; embedding animal welfare in conservation and anti-trafficking measures; assessing welfare impacts in infrastructure and technological innovation; and strengthening education and research that support holistic, One Health-aligned solutions.
The report further argues that even as we learn more about the critical role of animals in sustainable development, new societal developments with significant implications for animals – from artificial intelligence to deep-sea exploration – are rapidly outpacing governance structures, highlighting the need for forward-looking One Health–aligned approaches.
Momentum for action is already building. The UN Environment Assembly has recognized animal welfare’s relevance to sustainable development, and recent global initiatives – including the establishment of the One Health High-Level Expert Panel and the Pandemic Agreement – reinforce the importance of a coordinated global response on these issues.
A detailed Technical Supplement accompanies the report, offering suggested refinements to SDGs 1–17 and proposing potential targets and indicators for a dedicated SDG 18 on animal health and welfare.
By the numbers
- An estimated three-quarters (74%) of farmed land animals globally are farmed in intensive conditions or “factory farms”. The vast majority of farmed fishes are also intensively raised.
- 75% of emerging infectious diseases in humans originate from animals, many linked to how we farm, trade, and interact with animals and their habitats.
- The majority of medically important antibiotics are fed to farmed animals, contributing to anti-microbial resistance which already kills more people annually than HIV/AIDS or malaria.
- Humans and farmed animals now make up 95% of the world’s mammal biomass; only 5% is wild mammals.
- Emerging science underscores that wild animals are vital to carbon sequestration by supporting forests, soils and marine ecosystem health. A 2023 Nature study found that restoring nine key wildlife groups globally, including bison, African forest elephants and fish, could deliver 6.4 Gt of CO₂ drawdown per year.
- 75% of global food crops are pollinator-dependent. The global value of pollination for commercial food production alone has been estimated at over USD 350 billion a year.
Nearly 8,000 animal species at risk as extreme heat and land-use change collide, Oxford study finds
New global analysis shows that by 2100 thousands of vertebrate species could face extinction as climate-driven extreme heat combines with expanding human land use
Almost 8,000 animal species could be pushed closer to extinction by the end of this century as the interacting effects of climate change-driven extreme heat and human land-use change create increasingly unsuitable conditions across their habitats, according to new research from a international research team led by Dr Reut Vardi of the School of Geography and the Environment, University of Oxford.
The study, ‘Effects of future climate extreme heat events and land use changes on land vertebrates’, published today in Global Change Biology, assessed nearly 30,000 species of amphibians, birds, mammals, and reptiles. It examined how future extreme heat events and projected land-use changes will affect species across their preferred habitats and thermal limits.
Dr Reut Vardi, Postdoctoral Researcher, School of Geography and the Environment, said:
‘Our research highlights the importance of considering the potential effects of multiple threats together to get a better estimation of their potential impact. It further stresses the urgency of conservation and mitigation actions globally to prevent immense losses to biodiversity.’
By 2100, up to 7,895 species are expected to face extreme heat events, unsuitable land-use changes, or both across their entire range - conditions that could place them at risk of global extinction.
Across the four scenarios the study explored, the most severe suggests species could experience unsuitable conditions across more than half (52%) of their range on average. Even under the most optimistic scenario, species will still face unsuitable conditions due to both factors across 10% of their range on average.
The combined effects of climate and land-use change are projected to be particularly acute in regions including the Sahel, the Middle East, and Brazil.
Under two of the scenarios modelled, more than half of all Data Deficient (>77%), Near Threatened (>50%), or threatened species (Vulnerable, Endangered, and Critically Endangered; >60%) will experience unsuitable conditions across at least half of their range.
The findings underline how future environmental changes could dramatically reshape global biodiversity, and the importance of identifying and mitigating these interacting threats.
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Notes to editors
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Article DOI: 10.1111/gcb.70625
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Journal
Global Change Biology
Article Title
Effects of future climate extreme heat events and land use changes on land vertebrates
Article Publication Date
9-Dec-2025
Elusive species face the greatest threat from human land use
University of Liverpool
A new study from University of Liverpool researchers reveals that the species hardest to detect—those rarely seen, recorded, or included in scientific monitoring—are also the most vulnerable to human-driven habitat change.
The findings published in Global Ecology and Biogeography suggest that because these elusive species are underrepresented in global biodiversity databases, current biodiversity indicators likely underestimate the true scale of biodiversity loss.
The study found that:
- Hard-to-sample species decline more sharply as land-use intensity increases.
- Intensive agriculture may support only 18% of original biodiversity, compared to previous estimates of 47% that omit poorly recorded species.
- A new statistical method corrects for ‘recordability bias,’ allowing biodiversity indicators to better represent the full range of species affected by human activity.
Addressing data gaps
Land-use change is a major driver of biodiversity decline, yet many of the species most at risk—particularly those infrequently recorded—are missing from the datasets that underpin global biodiversity metrics. This research shows that excluding these elusive species leads to substantial underestimation of biodiversity loss.
Importantly, the study demonstrates that this gap can be corrected without new fieldwork. By leveraging open, crowd-sourced data from around the world, researchers can make biodiversity indicators more accurate and more representative—an essential step for effective conservation policy and for tracking progress toward international biodiversity targets.
About the study
The team combined abundance data from the PREDICTS (Projecting Responses of Ecological Diversity in Changing Terrestrial Systems) database with occurrence records from the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF). Together, these resources include scientific surveys and millions of open, crowd-sourced biodiversity observations, many contributed by the public through platforms such as iNaturalist.
Using a statistical approach, researchers estimated how less-recorded species respond to different land uses. They analysed more than 4,000 species of plants, birds, and spiders from PREDICTS and applied the model to over 270,000 species worldwide with occurrence records in GBIF, covering data from 1600 to 2023. The findings suggest far greater biodiversity loss in heavily modified landscapes than previously recognised.
iNaturalist alone has generated more than 118 million verified observations and is one of the largest contributors of open biodiversity data. As iNaturalist Executive Director Scott Loarie notes: “iNaturalist is unique as a GBIF publisher because it has generated tens of millions of records distributed across hundreds of thousands of species. This is important from a conservation perspective because, unless we rely on a relatively small number of species such as birds (~11k species globally) as proxies for global biodiversity, reducing extinction rates is going to require insights across a large portion of the ~2M named species.”
“Correcting for biases in existing datasets gives us a clearer picture of biodiversity loss and helps design more effective recovery strategies,” said the University of Liverpool’s Dr Claudia Gutierrez-Arellano, Corresponding Author of the study. “This work shows how vital open data and public participation in science are for revealing species that would otherwise remain invisible.”
Next steps
The researchers recommend that other biodiversity indicators adopt similar extrapolation techniques to ensure conservation policies reflect the true magnitude of biodiversity decline. By incorporating hard-to-detect species, global biodiversity metrics can more accurately guide efforts to protect and restore ecosystems.
The full study Hard-to-Sample Species Are More Sensitive to Land-Use Change: Implications for Global Biodiversity Metrics is available here: Hard‐To‐Sample Species Are More Sensitive to Land‐Use Change: Implications for Global Biodiversity Metrics – Gutiérrez‐Arellano – 2025 – Global Ecology and Biogeography – Wiley Online Library
Journal
Global Ecology and Biogeography
Subject of Research
Animals
