Biodiversity Conservation and Sustainable Development: A Case Study of Oman’s National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan

Biodiversity and sustainable development are terms that have been used in the arena of environmentalism with sheer abandon in the past decade. As a consequence the definitions of these terms have been overextended to cover matters far beyond their intended scope. One of the major difficulties causing this confusion is the inability to explain the link between biodiversity and sustainable development in unambiguous terms. Good examples are the National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans produced by the nations signatory to the Convention on Biodiversity (CBD). The worst-case scenarios in some of these strategies and action plans indicate very remote, if at all any links between biodiversity and sustainable development.