The human race is living beyond its means. Two-thirds of World's Resources 'used up' by National Geographic / UN News / The Guardian 12:01pm 31st Mar, 2005   March 30, 2005    "Two-thirds of World's Resources 'used up', by Tim Radford. (The Guardian).    The human race is living beyond its means. A report backed by 1,360 scientists from 95 countries - some of them world leaders in their fields - today warns that the almost two-thirds of the natural machinery that supports life on Earth is being degraded by human pressure.    The study contains what its authors call "a stark warning" for the entire world. The wetlands, forests, savannahs, estuaries, coastal fisheries and other habitats that recycle air, water and nutrients for all living creatures are being irretrievably damaged. In effect, one species is now a hazard to the other 10 million or so on the planet, and to itself.    "Human activity is putting such a strain on the natural functions of Earth that the ability of the planet's ecosystems to sustain future generations can no longer be taken for granted," it says.    The report, prepared in Washington under the supervision of a board chaired by Robert Watson, the British-born chief scientist at the World Bank and a former scientific adviser to the White House, will be launched today at the Royal Society in London. It warns that:    · Because of human demand for food, fresh water, timber, fibre and fuel, more land has been claimed for agriculture in the last 60 years than in the 18th and 19th centuries combined.    · An estimated 24% of the Earth's land surface is now cultivated.    · Water withdrawals from lakes and rivers has doubled in the last 40 years. Humans now use between 40% and 50% of all available freshwater running off the land.    · At least a quarter of all fish stocks are overharvested. In some areas, the catch is now less than a hundredth of that before industrial fishing.    · Since 1980, about 35% of mangroves have been lost, 20% of the world's coral reefs have been destroyed and another 20% badly degraded.    · Deforestation and other changes could increase the risks of malaria and cholera, and open the way for new and so far unknown disease to emerge.    In 1997, a team of biologists and economists tried to put a value on the "business services" provided by nature - the free pollination of crops, the air conditioning provided by wild plants, the recycling of nutrients by the oceans. They came up with an estimate of $33 trillion, almost twice the global gross national product for that year. But after what today's report, Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, calls "an unprecedented period of spending Earth's natural bounty" it was time to check the accounts.    "That is what this assessment has done, and it is a sobering statement with much more red than black on the balance sheet," the scientists warn. "In many cases, it is literally a matter of living on borrowed time. By using up supplies of fresh groundwater faster than they can be recharged, for example, we are depleting assets at the expense of our children."    Flow from rivers has been reduced dramatically. For parts of the year, the Yellow River in China, the Nile in Africa and the Colorado in North America dry up before they reach the ocean. An estimated 90% of the total weight of the ocean's large predators - tuna, swordfish and sharks - has disappeared in recent years. An estimated 12% of bird species, 25% of mammals and more than 30% of all amphibians are threatened with extinction within the next century. Some of them are threatened by invaders.    The Baltic Sea is now home to 100 creatures from other parts of the world, a third of them native to the Great Lakes of America. Conversely, a third of the 170 alien species in the Great Lakes are originally from the Baltic.    Invaders can make dramatic changes: the arrival of the American comb jellyfish in the Black Sea led to the destruction of 26 commercially important stocks of fish. Global warming and climate change, could make it increasingly difficult for surviving species to adapt.    A growing proportion of the world lives in cities, exploiting advanced technology. But nature, the scientists warn, is not something to be enjoyed at the weekend. Conservation of natural spaces is not just a luxury.    "These are dangerous illusions that ignore the vast benefits of nature to the lives of 6 billion people on the planet. We may have distanced ourselves from nature, but we rely completely on the services it delivers."    30 March 2005    UN-backed ecological report warns of potential new diseases and ‘dead zones’. (UN News)    The emergence of new diseases, sudden changes in water quality, creation of coastal “dead zones,” the collapse of fisheries and shifts in regional climate are just some of the potential consequences of humankind’s degradation of the planet’s ecosystems, according to a new United Nations-backed report launched today.    Humans have changed ecosystems more rapidly and extensively in the last 50 years than in any other period; some 60 per cent of ecosystem elements supporting life on Earth, such as fresh water, clean air or a relatively stable climate, are being degraded or used unsustainably; and the situation could become significantly worse during the first half of this century, according to the study.    “Only by valuing all our precious natural and human resources can we hope to build a sustainable future,” Secretary General Kofi Annan said in a message launching the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) Synthesis Report compiled by 1,300 scientists in 95 countries. “The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment is an unprecedented contribution to our global mission for development, sustainability and peace.”    The four-year assessment was designed by a partnership of UN agencies, international scientific organizations and development agencies, with private sector and civil society input, in response to Mr. Annan’s call for global support of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which seek to slash a host of socio-economic ills such as extreme poverty and hunger by 2015.    “The overriding conclusion of this assessment is that it lies within the power of human societies to ease the strains we are putting on the nature services of the planet, while continuing to use them to bring better living standards to all,” the MA board of directors said in a statement, “Living beyond Our Means: Natural Assets and Human Well-being.”    “Achieving this, however, will require radical changes in the way nature is treated at every level of decision-making and new ways of cooperation between government, business and civil society. The warning signs are there for all of us to see. The future now lies in our hands.”    Although evidence remains incomplete, the report finds enough to warn that ongoing degradation of 15 of the 24 ecosystem services examined – including fresh water, capture fisheries, air and water regulation, and regulation of regional climate, natural hazards and pests – increases the likelihood of potentially abrupt changes that will seriously affect human well-being.    Its findings include:    * More land has been converted to agriculture since 1945 than in the 18th and 19th centuries combined. More than half of all the synthetic nitrogen fertilizers, first made in 1913, ever used on the planet have been used since 1985, resulting in a substantial and largely irreversible loss in diversity, with some 10 to 30 per cent of the mammal, bird and amphibian species currently threatened with extinction.    * Ecosystem degradation is a barrier to achieving the MDGs. In all the four plausible futures explored, scientists project progress in eliminating hunger, but at far slower rates than needed to halve the scourge by 2015. Changes in ecosystems such as deforestation influence the abundance of human pathogens such as malaria and cholera, as well as the risk of emergence of new diseases. Malaria, for example, accounts for 11 per cent of the disease burden in Africa and had it been eliminated 35 years ago, the continent’s gross domestic product would have increased by $100 billion.    * The world’s poorest people suffer most from ecosystem changes. The regions facing significant problems of degradation – sub-Saharan Africa, Central Asia, some regions in Latin America, and parts of South and Southeast Asia – also face the greatest challenges in achieving the MDGs, such as halving extreme poverty by 2015. In sub-Saharan Africa the number of poor is forecast to rise to 404 million in a decade from 315 million in 1999.    The report was launched simultaneously at several UN headquarters around the world. “The challenge of ensuring the future of our environment is pressing and concerns us all, whether we work in education, science, culture or communication,” UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Director-General Koïchiro Matsuura said in a message in Paris.    “The work of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment makes clear how ecosystems and human health are intertwined and further highlights how important it is that decisions related to economic development also protect the environment, in order to ultimately safeguard human health,” said Kerstin Leitner, Assistant Director-General for Sustainable Development and Healthy Environments of the Geneva-based World Health Organization (WHO).    “The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment gives us, in some ways for the first time, an insight into the economic importance of ecosystem services and some new and additional arguments for respecting and conserving the Earth’s life support systems,” declared Klaus Toepfer, Executive Director of the Nairobi-based UN Environment Programme (UNEP).    March 31, 2005    Earth's Health in Sharp Decline, Massive Study Finds, by Brian Handwerk. (National Geographic News)    The report card has arrived from the largest ever scientific Earth analysis, and many of the planet's ecosystems are simply not making the grade.    The UN-backed Millennium Ecosystem Assessment Synthesis Report found that nearly two-thirds of Earth's life-supporting ecosystems, including clean water, pure air, and stable climate, are being degraded by unsustainable use.    Humans have caused much of this damage during the past half century. Soaring demand for food, fresh water, timber, fiber, and fuel have led to dramatic environmental changes, from deforestation to chemical pollution, the report says.    The already grim situation may worsen dramatically during the first half of the 21st century, the report's authors warn.    Over 1,300 governmental and private-sector contributors from 95 countries collaborated to create the landmark study. For four years they examined the planet's many habitats and species and the systems that bind them together.    The United Nations Environment Programme compiled the report and released the results yesterday in Beijing, China.    "Only by understanding the environment and how it works, can we make the necessary decisions to protect it," UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said in a press statement accompanying the report's release. "Only by valuing all our precious natural and human resources, can we hope to build a sustainable future."    Socioeconomic Impact    The report paints a rather bleak picture for biodiversity throughout much of the natural world. Perhaps 10 to 30 percent of Earth's mammal, bird, and amphibian species are facing extinction.    The massive ecological survey was begun in response to Annan's Millennium Development Goals, a UN initiative that aims to dramatically reduce socio-economic problems, such as hunger and extreme poverty, by 2015.    "The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment gives us, in some ways for the first time, an insight into the economic importance of ecosystem services and some new and additional arguments for respecting and conserving the Earth's life-support systems," said Klaus Toepfer, executive director of the Nairobi-based UN Environment Programme.    Current human usage patterns of Earth's environment have increased the global food supply, albeit too slowly to accomplish the UN goal of halving world hunger by 2015.    The negative effects of ecosystem strain also include collapsing fisheries, coastal "dead zones" near sediment-heavy river mouths, shifting water quality, and unpredictable regional climate, the report said.    Deforestation and other radical ecosystem alterations also promote diseases, such as malaria and cholera, as well as new strains of existing contagions.    Changes to water systems may increase the frequency and severity of destructive floods. Over a hundred thousand people were killed in the 1990s by floods, which also caused destruction to the tune of 243 billion dollars (U.S.), according to the report.    The regions facing the greatest environmental degradation are also among the world's poorest: sub-Saharan Africa, Central Asia, and parts of Latin America, and South and Southeast Asia    Call for Radical Change    The report urges drastic policy changes to the ways in which natural resources are used. From an economic perspective, the study suggests that many intact ecosystems should be regarded as more valuable than those altered for commercial use.    For example, citing wetland wildlife habitat, water pollution filtration, water storage, and recreational value, the report appraised intact Thai mangroves at a thousand U.S. dollars per acre (0.4 hectare). The same mangroves were valued at only U.S. $200 an acre after they had been cleared for fish and shellfish farming.    "The overriding conclusion of this assessment is that it lies within the power of human societies to ease the strains we are putting on the nature services of the planet, while continuing to use them to bring better living standards to all," the report's 45-person board of directors said in a statement.    "Achieving this, however, will require radical changes in the way nature is treated at every level of decision-making and new ways of cooperation between government, business and civil society," the statement continued. "The warning signs are there for all of us to see. The future now lies in our hands."
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