Nick Dusic points out the links

Can scientists demonstrate the link between biodiversity and the economy, security and health?

That is the question government ministers and international organisations, like the World Bank, are asking.  In the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA), scientists gave their response by looking at all the things the Planet’s ecosystems do for us. Conducted by 1,300 experts from 95 countries, the MA is recognized by governments as a benchmark for assessing how we are meeting our obligations under four international environmental treaties.1

When we eat food, drink a glass of water or enjoy a walk in the woods, we are enjoying the things our ecosystems do for us.  Normally, we only notice these services when they are gone.  When we over-exploit fish stocks, our economy grows more slowly than it otherwise would, due to the loss of the fishing industry.  When we log upland forests, we are less secure due to the increased risk of flooding.  When we pollute freshwater ecosystems, we are less healthy due to poor water quality. 

The services that ecosystems provide are fundamental to our wellbeing.  However, the MA found that we have not yet managed to make sustainable use of them.  Over the last 50 years, we have degraded 60 per cent of ecosystem services.

We have done this mainly by changing habitats, overexploiting certain species and polluting the environment.  Overall, by not managing sustainably what our ecosystems can provide, we have affected human well-being for specific groups of people. The people most dependent on their ecosystems are often the poorest and most vulnerable. 

There is action we can take to use ecosystem services sustainably so that they support our well-being.

What we can do

Globally, we have seen substantial increases in the production of crops and farming of livestock.  We have achieved these increases by degrading other things ecosystems provide.  Governments can redress this situation by cutting subsidies for production.  They can also introduce financial incentives for farming practices to support ecosystem services other than agricultural, such as water purification and nutrient cycling.  In Europe, further reforms to the Common Agricultural Policy could provide the economic incentives to farmers to support a range of ecosystem services.

We usually think that changes to ecosystems occur gradually.  This is not always the case.  There is evidence of more abrupt changes.  The Atlantic cod stocks off the coast of Newfoundland collapsed in 1992, resulting in the loss of tens of thousands of jobs after decades of intensive fishing.  They are still not recovering, despite the closure of most fishing grounds.  We need to understand the thresholds past which ecosystems are no longer able to support what we have become used to.

Living within environmental limits is one of the UK’s guiding principles, set out in its Sustainable Development Strategy.3  If we are going to avoid crossing ecological thresholds in the future, we need better models of how different pressures affect ecosystems.  Because we are uncertain about the way complex ecological systems work, we will need to adopt a precautionary approach.  This means we should reduce the way our activities put pressure on ecosystems, so that we lessen the risk of abrupt changes.

Helping poor people

Poor and vulnerable people in developing countries suffer a great deal when their ecosystems can no longer provide the things they traditionally have done, such as food, shelter and medicine.  Ecosystem services play a crucial part in meeting the Millennium Development Goals for eradicating poverty and hunger, reducing child mortality, combating diseases and ensuring environmental sustainability.  In taking decisions about development, people everywhere will need to consider the value of what ecosystems can provide.

Scientists’ answer

Scientists have answered the policymakers’ requests to show the linkages between biodiversity, economic growth, health and security.  We know that if we do not consider the huge variety of things our ecosystems can do for us, we will continue to degrade them, increase the chance of crossing ecological thresholds and make it harder for the most vulnerable to escape poverty.

We now have a clear benchmark to chart our progress towards sustainability.  If our policy-making and our decisions as business people and consumers are going to include what ecosystems can do for us, then scientists need to engage in these matters as a matter of routine.  We cannot wait until the next time that policymakers want to assess the state of the Planet’s ecosystems.

References
1.  The UN Convention on Biological Diversity, the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, the UN Convention to Combat Desertification, and the Convention on Migratory Species.

Nick Dusic is the Science Policy Manager at the British Ecological Society