[Mb-civic] Current rates of species extinction will make it more difficult to roll back poverty

[ean at sbcglobal.net]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/2/hi/science/nature/4563499.stm 

 BBC NEWS
Earth's species feel the squeeze
By Jonathan Amos
BBC News science reporter

If we continue with current rates of species extinction, we will have no 
chance of rolling back poverty and the lives of all humans will be 
diminished.

That is the stark warning to come out of the Millennium Ecosystem 
Assessment (MA), the most comprehensive audit of the health of our 
planet to date.

Organisms are disappearing at something like 100 to 1,000 times the 
"background levels" seen in the fossil record.

Scientists warn that removing so many species puts our own existence 
at risk.

It will certainly make it much harder to lift the world's poor out of 
hardship given that these people are often the most vulnerable to 
ecosystem degradation, the researchers say.

The message is written large in Ecosystems and Human Well-being: 
the Biodiversity Synthesis Report.

Biodiversity and human well-being just cannot be separated
It is the latest in a series of detailed documents to come out of the MA, 
a remarkable tome drawn up by 1,300 researchers from 95 nations 
over four years.

The MA pulls together the current state of knowledge and in its latest 
release this week focuses specifically on biodiversity and the likely 
impacts its continued loss will have on human society.

Even faster

In one sense, and precisely because it is a synthesis, the new 
document contains few surprises. It is, nonetheless, a startling - and 
depressing - read.

	
MA BIODIVERSITY SYNTHESIS
The last 50 years have seen the biggest biodiversity upheaval in 
human history
Over half the world's biomes (vegetation types) have experienced 
about 20-50% conversion to human use
The rates of change have been greatest in tropical and sub-tropical dry 
forests

Some 35% of mangroves and about 20% of corals have gone
Across a range of taxonomic groups, species are in decline
A third of all amphibians, a fifth of mammals and an eighth of all birds 
are now threatened with extinction. It is thought 90% of the large 
predatory fish in the oceans have gone since the beginning of 
industrial trawling.

And these are just the vertebrates - the species we know most about. 
Ninety percent of species, maybe more, have not even been 
catalogued by science yet.

"Changes in biodiversity were more rapid in the last 50 years than at 
any time in human history," said Dr Georgina Mace, the director of 
science at the Institute of Zoology, in London, UK, and an MA 
synthesis team member.

"And when you look to the future, to various projections and scenarios, 
we expect those changes to continue and in some circumstances to 
accelerate.

"Future models are very uncertain but all of them tell us that as we 
move into the next 100 years, we'll be seeing extinction rates that are a 
thousand to 10,000 times those in the fossil record."

'Invisible services'

One feature that sets the MA apart from previous projects of its kind is 
the way it defines ecosystems in terms of the "services", or benefits, 
that people get from them.

Some of these services are obvious - they are "provisional": timber for 
building; fish for food; fibres to make clothes.

At another level, these services are largely unseen - the recycling of 
nutrients, pollination and seed dispersal, climate control, the 
purification of water and air - but without these "support" and 
"regulating" systems, life on Earth would soon collapse.

And although we may be some distance away from an "end scenario", 
there is no doubt the rapid expansion of the human population and its 
high consumption of natural resources have taken a heavy toll on 
ecosystems and the organisms that inhabit them.

"Biodiversity and human well-being just cannot be separated," said Dr 
Kaveh Zahedi, the officer in charge of the Unep World Conservation 
Monitoring Centre in Cambridge, UK.

"We are befitting from a whole range of services that up until now have 
almost been invisible; we haven't considered them. And then they 
suddenly pop up on our radar screens - we have a tragedy in Asia with 
a tsunami and we realise that those mangroves that were cut down 
had a value; they provided a service in terms of coastal protection."

Similar picture

Land-use (habitat) changes, climate change, pollution and over-
exploitation - they are all pushing down on biodiversity and the 
pressure shows little sign of easing.

"The magnitude of the challenge of slowing the rate of biodiversity loss 
is demonstrated by the fact that most of the direct drivers of 
biodiversity loss are projected to either remain constant or increase in 
the near future," the MA biodiversity synthesis report says.

	If you do things the right way, if you chose the right options for 
poverty alleviation, you can also maximise biodiversity and 
sustainability

Removing huge swathes of forest has a blunt and clear impact on 
biodiversity by taking out the habitat formerly occupied by plants and 
animals. But there are subtle changes taking place, too.

The distribution of species around the globe is becoming more 
homogenous, as invasive creatures hitch a ride on fast human 
transport and trade routes.

Genetic diversity, also, is declining rapidly.

This is most obvious in domesticated plants and animals where the 
pursuit of high yields and the pressures of global markets have pushed 
farmers towards a limited range of cultivars and breeds.

And so it is not simply that species are fewer in number, their changed 
circumstances may also have reduced their resilience and their ability 
to cope with future change.

Possible tensions

In 2002, world governments, through the Convention on Biological 
Diversity, set themselves the target of making a "substantial reduction 
in the rate of loss of biological diversity" by 2010.

The MA illustrates just how tough it will be to meet that target. What is 
more, there may even be occasions when progress towards that target 
conflicts with the even loftier 2015 Millennium Development Goals of 
cutting into world hunger and poverty, and improving healthcare.

	
BIODIVERSITY AND POVERTY
Biodiversity and human well-being are inextricably linked
Humans benefit from ecosystem services, but unsustainable use 
drives biodiversity loss

People living in rural areas in developing nations are often most 
dependent on biodiversity.  And they are usually most vulnerable to 
ecosystem service degradation. They cannot afford to move out or 
import new services

A classic example is the development of rural road networks - a 
common feature of hunger reduction strategies - which are likely also 
to accelerate rates of biodiversity loss by fragmenting habitats and by 
opening up new areas to unsustainable harvests.

This sort of thing has been well documented in Africa where the 
bushmeat trade that endangers many species follows the development 
of transport infrastructure.

"This is a very important issue," said Dr Mace. "It's clear there are 
going to have to be trade-offs and compromises but it's not a simple 
relationship. It's not a case that you can have 20% poverty and 80% 
biodiversity.

"If you do things the right way, if you chose the right options for poverty 
alleviation, you can also maximise biodiversity and sustainability."

And Dr Neville Ash, another MA synthesis team member, added: "The 
bottom line is that you cannot achieve long-term poverty alleviation 
without sustainability.

"In order to reduce hunger and poverty and increase access to clean 
water and sanitation, we need to have a strong base of environmental 
sustainability which is providing these services on which people rely for 
their well-being."

Little time

It is very evident, too, that we need to get a move on.

The wheels of global governance turn slowly, as was seen with the 
Kyoto Protocol on climate change which finally entered into force in 
February after many years of negotiation.

The MA has identified possible solutions - from significant shifts in 
consumption patterns and better education, to the adoption of new 
technologies and a large increase in the areas enjoying protection.

And if some of the ideas sound "old hat", such as the abolition of 
farming subsidies that drive crop production to the detriment of field 
biodiversity - that is because they are.

"Most of the approaches to achieving more sympathetic management 
of the natural environment and the conservation of biodiversity - I think 
we and governments know them already," commented Graham 
Wynne, the chief executive of the UK bird conservation group, the 
RSPB.

"The real challenge is to deploy them more extensively and more 
intelligently.

"And you can't get away from the fact that we simply need more 
money.

"The sums of money we throw at the environment in the West are 
relatively modest; and the sums of money the West is prepared to 
devote to developing countries is pitiful."

THE LIVING PLANET INDEX
The Living Planet Index is a measure of the state of the world's 
biodiversity. It measures trends of vertebrate populations in terrestrial, 
freshwater and marine environments

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/science/nature/4563499.stm

Published: 2005/05/21 23:16:39 GMT

© BBC MMV


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