Authors: Sol, Joeri;

The heightened rate of global biodiversity loss is both alarming and well documented. Several drivers are clear (e.g., habitat loss, harvesting, climate change), but there remains debate about how income growth contributes to biodiversity loss. While popular theories (e.g., Environmental Kuznets Curve and Ecological Modernization) have environmental damage increase with income at early stages of development, green growth posits that economic growth may reduce environmental damage once a certain threshold level of wealth is reached. This paper explores how socioeconomic variables relate to regional variation in the endangerment and population trends of small-ranged species using a subsample of the IUNC Red List of Threatened Species assessments of 3,508 species. Regression analysis suggests no indication of an Environmental Kuznets Curve for biodiversity loss. Rather, GDP per capita is negatively associated with both species endangerment and decreasing population trends. This negative association between per capita income and species threat is estimated over a sample of largely low-income regions, and opposite to the positive partial correlation found for the larger IUCN sample. Taken together, the results suggest the inverse of an Environmental Kuznets Curve and that possibilities for green growth may be limited to low-income regions.