Special Issue: Insects and the UN Sustainable Development Goals

To simultaneously reduce inequality, limit environmental impact of human activities and secure resilient livelihoods, the scientific research behind SDGs needs to consider not only the ecological integrity of life-supporting systems, but also the underlying socioeconomic stressors that affect their vulnerability in a changing world. Because insects and other invertebrates have profound and well-identified influences on many ecosystem services (e.g. pollination and biological control) and SDGs (e.g. crop pest and disease vectors), insect research and development have a great potential to address current global challenges. 

This special issue, from Current Opinion in Insect Science, makes a case for expanding the breadth of disciplines that are directly involved in new transdisciplinary entomological research and making fundamental changes in the way researchers work with decision makers to co-create knowledge that will address pressing development problems. In other words, insect science needs to promote a sustainability science approach.

The current scale, pace, and practice of science are not keeping up with the changes in Earth and human conditions. The lack of a sustainability science approach is partly the reason why we have hard times fixing global issues such as the COVID-19 or locust swarms. It is more than ever pressing to incorporate SDGs into science to solve some of today’s global socio-environmental challenges. The crises, regardless of whether they concern devastating locust swarms or pandemics, demand it.