New Study Shows Bat Conservation Benefits Human Health, Economy, and Sustainability
01.09.25
New Study Shows Bat Conservation Benefits Human Health, Economy, and Sustainability
January 9, 2025 (Austin, Texas) — Conservation efforts to protect bats are helping to achieve global goals for biodiversity and sustainable development, according to a new study published in Conservation Letters by Bat Conservation International (BCI). The study shows how saving bats not only helps nature but also provides important benefits for people, such as better health and stronger economies, while supporting international goals like the Kunming–Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UNSDGs).
To demonstrate how bat conservation contributes to broad societal goals, the authors mapped how the outcomes of 5 bat-derived ecosystem services and 36 bat conservation actions can measurably contribute to specific GBF targets and UNSDGs. The authors found that bat conservation results in contributions to 17 of 23 GBF targets, and to 46 UNSDG targets within 14 of 17 UNSDGs.
“Bats are integral parts of socioenvironmental systems, and their conservation offers a powerful opportunity to strengthen global efforts to meet the Kunming–Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework and United Nations Sustainable Development targets by 2030” says Dr. Luz de Wit, BCI’s Director of One Health. “Protecting bats delivers broad benefits, from enhancing biodiversity and human well-being to supporting sustainable agriculture, fostering capacity development, advancing ecosystem restoration, and even leads to technological innovation.”
The authors draw from BCI’s programs to demonstrate how bat conservation produces co-benefits. For example, protecting cave habitats for endangered bats can result in employment opportunities for local communities, education opportunities for local students to learn science and technology skills, and reduced pesticide use due to pest consumption by healthy bat populations, leading to economic gain and reduced pesticide exposure.
The authors call for species-based conservation practitioners around the world to consider co-benefits to human society when planning their work. The study demonstrates how bat conservation’s contributions to societal goals can be mapped for specific conservation initiatives, using cave ecosystems and bat foraging habitats as examples. “Investing limited resources in conservation and in societal development is often seen as a conflict of interests,” says Dr. Winifred Frick, BCI’s Chief Scientist. “But investing in species conservation benefits both of these goals.”
BCI hopes this study will increase awareness of how protecting bats and their habitats benefits society. The connectivity mapping between bat conservation and societal goals completed in this study can be applied to other species-based conservation programs to amplify how conservation efforts benefit species, ecosystems, and people around the globe.
To view this research paper, visit https://conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/conl.1307.
About Bat Conservation International
Bat Conservation International is a global conservation organization dedicated to ending bat extinctions. Bat Conservation International works worldwide to conserve caves, restore critical habitats in danger, and ensure the survival of the world’s bat species. For more information, visit batcon.org.
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