Saturday, March 16, 2019

The Rapid Decline of the Natural World Is a Crisis Even Bigger Than Climate Change

A three-year UN-backed study from the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services has grim implications for the future of humanity.


Left top: A durian plantation in Raub, on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur. Soaring demand for durians in China is being blamed for a new wave of deforestation in Malaysia.  Right top: A palm oil plantation encroaches on a wildlife reserve in Sabah, Malaysia.  Left bottom: The Kinabatangan River flows through a wildlife reserve in Sabah, Malaysia. The overuse of pesticides during the heavy equatorial rains creates a deadly runoff into the fragile river and its tributaries.  Right bottom: A palm oil plantation and factory in Sabah, Malaysia. (Credit: Getty Images) Click to enlarge.
Nature underpins all economies with the “free” services it provides in the form of clean water, air and the pollination of all major human food crops by bees and insects.  In the Americas, this is said to total more than $24 trillion a year.  The pollination of crops globally by bees and other animals alone is worth up to $577 billion. 

The final report will be handed to world leaders not just to help politicians, businesses, and the public become more aware of the trends shaping life on Earth, but also to show them how to better protect nature.

“High-level political attention on the environment has been focused largely on climate change because energy policy is central to economic growth.  But biodiversity is just as important for the future of earth as climate change,” said Sir Robert Watson, overall chair of the study, in a telephone interview from Washington, D.C.

“We are at a crossroads.  The historic and current degradation and destruction of nature undermine human well-being for current and countless future generations,” added the British-born atmospheric scientist who has led programs at NASA and was a science adviser in the Clinton administration.  “Land degradation, biodiversity loss, and climate change are three different faces of the same central challenge:  the increasingly dangerous impact of our choices on the health of our natural environment.”

Around the world, land is being deforested, cleared, and destroyed with catastrophic implications for wildlife and people.  Forests are being felled across Malaysia, Indonesia, and West Africa to give the world the palm oil we need for snacks and cosmetics.  Huge swaths of Brazilian rainforest are being cleared to make way for soy plantations and cattle farms, and to feed the timber industry, a situation likely to accelerate under new leader Jair Bolsonaro, a right-wing populist.

Read more at The Rapid Decline of the Natural World Is a Crisis Even Bigger Than Climate Change

No comments:

Post a Comment