Evaluation of the Aichi Biodiversity Targets: The international collaboration trilemma in interdisciplinary research

Abstract

Given the pros and cons of tourism on biodiversity, at least 12 of the 20 Aichi Biodiversity Targets are directly or indirectly related to tourism. Meanwhile, Target 19 aims to raise the generation, transfer, and application of knowledge on the topic of biodiversity. The objective of this study is, therefore, to evaluate the impact of Aichi Biodiversity Targets on the interdisciplinary research output, quality, and collaboration at the national scale regarding biodiversity and tourism. The Hamiltonian MCMC technique, incorporating the bibliometric analysis, was performed on 1,003 documents extracted from the Web of Science database. The current investigation revealed two prominent findings. First, the Aichi Biodiversity Targets induced positive effects on scientific productivity, quality, and international collaboration at the national level. Still, more than half of the countries on Earth (55.02%) had not acquired any interdisciplinary publication on the topic of biodiversity and tourism.Moreover, international collaboration was found to be an effective measure to improve scientific quality and quantity in both periods before and after the Aichi Targets. Nevertheless, whereas the effect of international collaboration on scientific output was similar between the two periods, its impact on scientific quality during 2011-2020 was lower than during 1991-2010. Thus, we argue that international cooperation cannot be used as a "silver bullet" strategy for advancing knowledge in the interdisciplinary field between biodiversity and tourism due to the trilemma between quantity, quality, and cost. Eventually, we recommend policymakers, funding evaluators, and researchers to put culture into perspective for lessening the cost of interdisciplinary research.

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