The Great Lakes Region of East and Central Africa (GLR) supports extraordinary biodiversity and provides ecosystem services supporting the livelihoods of millions of people within and beyond the region. The region is endowed with significant natural resources such as land, water, oil and gas and mineral reserves. These resources are the focus of national economic development strategies and investments in their exploitation are increasing, with potentially important consequences for the region’s biodiversity and the ecosystem services its inhabitants and economies depend on.

The main objective of this report is to provide a synthesis of the impacts of major commodity developments on biodiversity and ecosystem services in the GLR region, and of the current capacity to respond to these pressures.

The report constitutes the first part of a two-part project that supports the targeting of conservation-related investments in the region by the MacArthur Foundation and other donors. The second part is a spatial analysis of the potential impacts of future scenarios for commodity-driven land use change on biodiversity and ecosystem services in the region’s watersheds.