Global decadal assessment of life below water and on land

Medicinal Chemistry: A Key Driver in Achieving the Global Sustainable Development Goals

In 2015, the United Nations officially launched the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as "the blueprint to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all. They address the global challenges we face, including those related to poverty, inequality, climate change, environmental degradation, peace and justice. The 17 Goals are all interconnected, in order to leave no one behind, it is important that we achieve them all by 2030". Here, we have embedded medicinal chemistry as a key player to achieve SDGs. We firmly believe that medicinal chemistry can and must contribute to a sustainable future and a better world with an improved quality of life for all. We have taken a critical look at each of the SDGs, dividing them into Priority and Foundational, and analyzed how medicinal chemistry has an impact on each of them. Although much has been done, we are determined to make progress in this area.

Recent Developments and Challenges in Projecting the Impact of Crop Productivity Growth on Biodiversity Considering Market-Mediated Effects

The effect of an increase in crop productivity (output per unit of inputs) on biodiversity is hitherto poorly understood. This is because increased productivity of a crop in particular regions leads to increased profit that can encourage expansion of its cultivated area causing land use change and ultimately biodiversity loss, a phenomenon also known as "Jevons paradox" or the "rebound effect". Modeling such consequences in an interconnected and globalized world considering such rebound effects is challenging. Here, we discuss the use of computable general equilibrium (CGE) and other economic models in combination with ecological models to project consequences of crop productivity improvements for biodiversity globally. While these economic models have the advantage of taking into account market-mediated responses, resource constraints, endogenous price responses, and dynamic bilateral patterns of trade, there remain a number of important research and data gaps in these models which must be addressed to improve their performance in assessment of the link between local crop productivity changes and global biodiversity. To this end, we call for breaking the silos and building interdisciplinary networks across the globe to facilitate data sharing and knowledge exchange in order to improve global-to-local-to-global analysis of land, biodiversity, and ecosystem sustainability.