Zambia's unwise nationalisation of the mines in 1969 (as advised by the best of British development economists) may have contributed to declining copper production but population pressures, shifts in the terms of trade since the 1970s and a burden of debt to the West that originated then in recycled petro-dollars have contributed massively to the impoverishment of the country.
However, biodiversity and ecosystem services are declining at an unprecedented rate and the world failed to reach the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) target of a significant reduction in the rate of biodiversity loss by 2010.