Study Highlights Global Decline
30 March 05
By Jonathan Amos
BBC News science reporter
The most comprehensive survey
ever into the state of the planet concludes that human activities threaten the
Earth's ability to sustain future generations.
The report says the way
society obtains its resources has caused irreversible changes that are
degrading the natural processes that support life on Earth.
This will compromise efforts
to address hunger, poverty and improve healthcare.
The Millennium Ecosystem
Assessment was drawn up by 1,300 researchers from 95 nations over a period of
four years.
It reports that humans have
changed most ecosystems beyond recognition in a dramatically short space of
time.
The way society has sourced
its food, fresh water, timber, fibre and fuel over
the past 50 years has seriously degraded the environment, the assessment (MA)
concludes.
And the current state of
affairs is likely to be a road block to the Millennium Development Goals agreed
to by world leaders at the United Nations in 2000, it says.
"Any progress achieved
in addressing the goals of poverty and hunger eradication, improved health, and
environmental protection is unlikely to be sustained if most of the ecosystem
'services' on which humanity relies continue to be degraded," the report
states.
"This report is
essentially an audit of nature's economy, and the audit shows we've driven most
of the accounts into the red," commented Jonathan Lash, the president of
the World Resources Institute.
"If you drive the
economy into the red, ultimately there are significant consequences for our
capacity to achieve our dreams in terms of poverty reduction and
prosperity."
Way forward
The MA is slightly different
to all previous environmental reports in that it defines ecosystems in terms of
the "services", or benefits, that people get from them - timber for
building; clean air to breathe; fish for food; fibres
to make clothes.
The study finds the
requirements of a burgeoning world population after WW II drove an
unsustainable rush for these natural resources.
Although humanity has made
considerable gains in the process - economies and food production have
continued to grow - the way these successes have been achieved puts at risk
global prosperity in the future.
"When we look at the
drivers of change affecting ecosystems, we see that, across the board, the
drivers are either staying steady or increasing in severity - habitat change,
climate change, invasive species, overexploitation of resources; and pollution,
such as nitrogen and phosphorus," said Dr William Reid, the director of
the MA.
More land was converted to
agriculture since 1945 than in the 18th and 19th Centuries combined. More than
half of all the synthetic nitrogen fertilisers -
first made in 1913 - ever used on the planet were deployed after 1985.
The MA authors say the
pressure for resources has resulted in a substantial and largely irreversible
loss in the diversity of life on Earth, with some 10-30% of the mammal, bird
and amphibian species currently threatened with extinction.
The report says only four
ecosystem services have been enhanced in the last 50 years: increases in crop,
livestock and aquaculture production, and increased carbon sequestration for
global climate regulation (which has come from new forests planted in the
Northern Hemisphere).
Two services - fisheries and
fresh water - are said now to be well beyond levels that can sustain current,
much less future, demands.
Global value
The assessment runs to 2,500
pages and is intended to inform global policy initiatives. In many ways, it
mirrors the work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) which,
by bringing together hundreds of scientists in a peer-reviewed process, has
driven efforts to slow global warming.
MA - ASSESSMENT OVERVIEW
·
Humans have
radically altered ecosystems in just 50 years
·
Changes have
brought gains but at high ecosystem cost
·
Further
unsustainable practices will threaten development goals
·
Workable
solutions will require significant changes in policy
"The MA is a very
powerful consensus about the unsustainable trajectory that most of the world's
ecosystems are now on."
"There
will undoubtedly be gainsayers, as there are with the IPCC; but I put them in
the same box as the flat-Earthers and the people who
believe smoking doesn't cause cancer,"
said Professor Sir John Lawton, former chief executive of the
The report is not all doom
and gloom. Modelling of future scenarios suggests
human societies can ease the strains being put on nature, while continuing to
use them to raise living standards.
But it requires, says the MA,
changes in consumption patterns, better education, new technologies and higher
prices for exploiting ecosystems.
Some of the solutions go to
old but as yet unfulfilled initiatives, such as the abolition of production
subsidies which imbalance world trade and in agriculture are blamed for
overloading land with fertilisers and pesticides as
farmers chase high yields.
Newer solutions centre on
putting a value on "externalities" that are currently deemed to be
"free" - airlines do not pay for the carbon dioxide they put into the
atmosphere; and the price of food does not reflect the cost of cleaning
waterways that have been polluted by run-off of agrochemicals from the land.
PLANET UNDER PRESSURE
·
60% of world
ecosystem services have been degraded
·
Of 24 evaluated
ecosystems, 15 are being damaged
·
About 20% of
corals were lost in just 20 years; 20% degraded
·
Nutrient
pollution has led to eutrophication of waters and
coastal dead zones
·
Species
extinction is now 100-1,000 times above the normal background rate
·
In future, these
areas could be constrained by markets that trade permits - as in
Technology's role, the MA
says, will be keenly felt in the field of renewable energies.
But the pace of change needs
to quicken, the report warns. Angela Cropper, the co-chair of the MA assessment
panel, added: "The range of current responses are
not commensurate with the nature, the extent or the urgency of the situation
that is at hand.
"In our scenarios, we
see that with interventions that are strategic, targeted, and more fundamental
in nature - we can realise some of the desired
outcomes and they can have positive results for ecosystems, their services and
human well-being."
The MA has cost some $20m to
put together. It was funded by the Global Environment Facility, the United
Nations Foundation, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, the World Bank and
others.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/science/nature/4391835.stm
Published: 2005/03/30
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