WIDESPREAD DECLINE IN WORLD'S ECOSYSTEMS, SAYS NEW REPORT

by Someshwar Singh

Geneva , 19 Apr 2000 -- A widespread decline in the condition of the world's ecosystems due to increasing resource demands, if allowed to continue, could have devastating implications for human development and the welfare of all species, says a new report issued Tuesday.

According to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), one of the agencies involved in producing the new report "Guide to the World Resources 2000-2001: People and Ecosystems: The Fraying Web of Life, only the summary of which is now available at http: //www.wri.org/wri/wrr2000. Other collaborating agencies are the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the World Bank and the World Resources Institute.

Ecosystems are communities of interacting organisms and the physical environment in which they live; they are the biological engines of the planet. The report examines coastal, forest, grassland, freshwater and agricultural ecosystems. It analyzes their health on the basis of their ability to produce the goods and services that the world currently relies on. These include production of food, provision of pure and sufficient water, storage of atmospheric carbon, maintenance of biodiversity and provision of recreation and tourism opportunities.

The scorecard statistics in the report are sobering: half of the world's wetlands were lost last century; logging and conversion have shrunk the world's forests by as much as half; some 9% of the world's tree species are at risk of extinction; tropical deforestation may exceed 130,000 square kilometers per year; fishing fleets are 40% larger than the ocean can sustain; nearly 70% of the world's major marine fish stocks are overfished or are being fished at their biological limit; soil degradation has affected two-thirds of the world's agricultural lands in the last 50 years; some 30% of the world's original forests have been converted to agriculture; since 1980, the global economy has tripled in size and population has grown by 30% to 6 billion people; dams, diversions or canals fragment almost 60% of the world's largest rivers; 20% of the world's freshwater fish are extinct, threatened or endangered.

"For too long in both rich and poor nations, development priorities have focused on how much humanity can take from our ecosystems, with little attention to the impact of our actions," said Mark Malloch Brown, UNDP administrator. "With this report, we reconfirm our commitment to making the viability of the world's ecosystems a critical development priority for the 21st century." The World Bank president, James D. Wolfensohn said, "Governments and businesses must rethink some basic assumptions about how we measure and plan economic growth. The poor suffer most when ecosystems are degraded." (SUNS4653)

The above article first appeared in the South-North Development Monitor (SUNS) of which Chakravarthi Raghavan is the Chief Editor.

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