to help animals, sometimes you need to look at humans, and vice versa

We’re demonstrating how the well-being of animals and humans are interlinked.

Problem

All of our programs—from landscape conservation to wildlife crime—aim to improve the welfare of people and animals.

Like most other organizations, we use established metrics to evaluate the success of those programs. But those metrics often fail to tell the whole story.

When we analyze the welfare of animal populations by looking at population levels or life expectancy, we end up ignoring people. And when we analyze the welfare of human populations by looking at public health or economic growth indicators, we end up ignoring animals.

The result is that traditional metrics fail to capture the benefits that humans and animals provide each other.

Solution

We are evaluating and expanding metrics that can measure the well-being of both groups—and we’re showing how they’re interlinked.

In one of our reports, Measuring What Matters, we studied how the metrics to measure Gross National Happiness—like health, living standards, and community vitality—could relate to conservation projects. 

Our report, Thriving Together: Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals and Increasing Well-Being for Animals and People, analyzed how animal welfare projects could help us achieve the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. We are currently developing indicators to link improved community well-being with improved wildlife conservation results.  

Animals are key to human development is IFAW’s third report in our series related to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It takes this critical conversation one step further by outlining the steps countries and communities can take to better interlink both human and animal well-being, ultimately coming closer to achieving the various SDGs.