FRONT PAGE

Global ecosystems check-up yields
poor prognosis for developing world

By A.H. Zakri

After four years of work involving 1,300 scientists in 95 countries, the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) has been launched – the most comprehensive assessment ever of the health of the world’s ecosystems.

The food and water that keep us alive, the wood that gives us shelter, even the weather and the air we breathe are all products of the planet’s living systems.

The MA is the first attempt at a global check-up on the health of 24 different ecosystem services, and the prognosis is cause for concern. Overall, the state of the planet is declining, and the developing world is bearing the brunt of the impacts.

The MA examines the future supply of natural resources, the demands to be placed on them, and potential consequences. It asks how changes to the global environment will affect human well-being.

Only five of the 24 ecosystem services examined were found to be increasing in their ability to benefit human populations, and these were mostly related to food production, which has outpaced population growth in the last 40 years.

Yet, there has been a 25-fold increase in the number of malnourished in the last decade, with the current total around 850 million people. Under the MA predictions, food security will not be achieved per the world goal for 2015, and child malnutrition will continue.

Of the remaining ecosystem services examined, 15 are in decline and five are stable. Those in decline include the provision of freshwater, fisheries and the purification of air and water. Moreover, it is likely that many of the human-caused ecosystem changes may have disproportionately large or abrupt effects, such as the emergence of new diseases, sudden changes in water quality, the creation of “dead zones” along the coasts, and collapse of fisheries.

There are many cautionary lessons to be drawn from the MA’s findings, but of most concern are the implications for the developing world, which stands to lose considerably from further decline in the world’s ecosystems.

By 2015, more than 80% of the world’s population will live in developing countries. The environmental stress on these parts of the world will be greatest, and the need to ensure sufficient provision of food, clean water and arable soil will be most urgent.

The degradation of ecosystems has exacerbated poverty in many parts of the developing world, and in some cases, is the cause of poverty. When soil erodes, for example, due to deforestation, subsistence farmers can no longer grow the crops needed. When fisheries collapse due to overfishing, not only do jobs disappear, so does an important and inexpensive source of protein for many citizens in developing countries.

The MA’s findings show a pattern of winners and losers in ecosystem change, and the losers are most often the world’s poor, including women and indigenous peoples.

The MA also concludes, however, that no country, not even the wealthiest, will be able to insulate themselves from the current decline in ecosystem services.

People and nature are inextricably linked. Natural disasters, drought or famine will drive populations to other nations in search of relief. Rich and poor, we must all heed the warnings of coming ecological challenges.

The good news is that there is still time to avert future problems—if we implement changes now.

At the global level, this means closer coordination between trade and environment negotiations. It also requires an emphasis on mitigating climate change. Developed countries need to help finance and implement solutions through investments in clean technology, increasing access to markets, and ensuring equitable sharing of benefits that arise from use of genetic resources.

At the national level, government policies need to ensure that market prices reflect the value of ecosystem services—the real costs of using (and polluting) air, water and land. Until then, consumers have no incentive to use these resources efficiently.

Subsidies such as those supporting European and American agriculture need to be addressed, given the particular damage they do by masking real environmental costs.

Policies to conserve forests and other biodiversity “hotspots” must balance protection with the need to use these resources in a sustainable fashion.

And well-developed national institutions are needed to ensure implementation and compliance.

On the local level, affected citizens need to be active participants in resource management decisions. Experience shows that ecotourism and the sustainable harvest of forest products, for example, are much more effective when local citizens have a genuine stake in the decision-making process. This means that they must also be given their fair share of the benefits.

To be successful, governments need to make large policy changes on multiple levels, and in fairly short order. The MA has taken the first step, creating a new space to bring together the scientific community, in consultation with governments, international institutions, business, NGOs and indigenous people.

Future efforts need to promote even greater involvement of scientists and other developing world experts, to lend real meaning to the adage “think globally, act locally.” Without the equal participation of developing world, no global discussion, nor action, can be considered legitimate.

In September, the international community will convene in New York to measure global progress toward achieving the Millennium Development Goals—eight objectives for human development for achievement by 2015.

The MA provides valuable new information for evaluating progress toward these goals, as well as potential policy measures for additional gains. Our findings serve as an urgent notice to all that the need for change is critical, and that the situation is not hopeless if we act now.

A.H. Zakri, Director of UNU Institute of Advanced Studies, is a Malaysian national and Co-Chair of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment.

© 2005  United Nations University