Green Earth Africa

The protection of biodiversity, while complex to value and quantify accurately, is essential for future well-being and economic development

A parrotfish swims over a dead coral reef in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. Photograph: Wilfredo Lee/AP

While awareness has been raised, we have yet to solve the systemic causes that continue to thwart meaningful, measurable change

A bee in Boroughbridge, northern England. The World Forum on Enterprise and the Environment 2011 later this month will examine challenges and opportunities within biodiversity. Photograph: Nigel Roddis/Reuters

Roll over the images for a guide to the biodiversity in the world’s 10 most at-risk rainforests

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Coral reefs are home to a quarter of the world’s marine life. But reefs aren’t just good for fish. 450 million people need them for food, jobs and protection of the sea. But climate change, pollution and over-fishing are trashing reefs everywhere. A quarter of the world’s coral reefs are damaged beyond repair. WWF is working to save these extraordinary underwater worlds.

Read more:http://wwf.panda.org/lpr

Accounts of the nation’s ‘natural captial’ meets key demand of the UN study of The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity

India is set to become the first country to publish accounts of its ‘natural wealth’. The announcement will be made at the biodiversity summit in Nagoya, Japan.

Photograph: Nozomu Endo/AP

India is today expected to become the first country in the world to commit to publishing a new set of accounts which track the nation’s plants,animals, water and other “natural wealth” as well as financial measurements such as GDP.

The announcement is due to be made at a meeting of world governments in Japan to try to halt global destruction of biodiversity, and it is hoped that such a move by a major developing economy will prompt other countries to join the initiative.

Work on agreeing common measures, such as the value of ecosystems and their “services” for humans – from relaxation to clean air and fertile soils – will be co-ordinated by the World Bank, which hopes it can sign up 10-12 nations and publish the results by 2015 at the latest.

The move fulfils one of the key demands of a major report also being published today at the Japan meeting, a UN study of The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (Teeb) .

The report was commissioned by the G8+5 major nations in 2007 in the hope of repeating the success of Lord Stern’s report on climate changein persuading governments of the strong economic case to take action on saving the natural world.

The environment secretary, Caroline Spelman, welcomed the report: “Teeb can have the same impact for biodiversity as Stern had for climate change and will be a useful tool to help reduce the loss of species and habitats … economically, we have to take action to reduce the loss of our natural environment before the cost becomes too high.”

Pavan Sukhdev, economist and the TEEB study leader said: “Natural capital is a massive asset class, and developing nations’ biggest asset.”For it to be missing from the balance sheet of the nation, or for failures not to be counted, does not make sense.”

After India and the other countries that join it in the first ecosystem accounts, Sukhdev said he hoped another 20-30 would adopt the system over the following three to five years.

“The rest: if they are not with it, people will get left behind,” he added. “We’ll never have all 192 countries, but does that matter? The idea is to establish the direction in which national accounting must go.”

After the publication over the past two years of an interim report and specific documents about the economics and recommended actions by governments, businesses and citizens , Teeb will today publish its final “synthesis” report.

This will not contain a specific headline value for all the world’s biodiversity, although earlier versions have quoted huge values for individual ecosystems such as forests, and Sukhdev today talks of “the multi-trillion dollar importance” of the natural world.

However it argues that there is plenty of evidence for national and local governments, businesses and individuals to radically review how they make decisions to take into account the damage or preservation of biodiversity.

“Teeb’s approach can reset the economic compass,” says Sukhdev. “Do nothing, and not only do we lose trillions of dollars’ worth of current and future benefits to society, we also further impoverish the poor and put future generations at risk. The time for ignoring biodiversity and persisting with conventional thinking regarding wealth creation and development is over. We must get on to the path towards a green economy.”

Among the report’s recommendations are that countries and companies should publish accounts of their natural capital, and how much it has increased or decreased over the previous year, in parallel with traditional financial accounts. This should help address current accounting rules which, for example, measure the clean up of a pollution spill as an increase in economic activity (by the clean up companies), but take no account of the long-term damage done.

Such all-encompassing measures would be more likely to encourage other suggested changes, such as paying people to protect or restore ecosystems, refunding people who do not cut down forests or farmers who reduce chemical fertilisers and pesticides; and better certification schemes so that those who produce products and services, such as food and drink, in more environmentally friendly ways, can get recognition and charge higher prices to cover extra costs.

The report also calls for reform of subsidies for damaging industries, such as mining and intensive farming, and tougher fines for polluters to discourage the problem and pay for proper restoration.

In a written statement for the Teeb launch and his own country’s annoucement, India’s minister for environment and forests, Jairam Ramesh, said: “Teeb aims to provide strong incentives for countries to ensure decisions are not solely based on short-term gains, but build foundations for sustainable and inclusive development.”

Among the figures collected by the report team were an estimate that at present rates deforestation would cost the global economy US$2-4.5tr (£1.27-2.86tr) a year by the middle of this century; while the estimated market for certified agricultural products, such as organic, would be $210bn (£133bn) by 2020. Another quoted by Teeb, by Trucost in London, found the total environmental damage by the world’s 3,000 biggest listed companies in 2008 added up to at least US$2.2tr (£1.40tr).

“Teeb has brought to the attention of the globe that nature’s goods and services are equally if not far more central to the wealth of nations including the poor – a fact that will be increasingly the case on a planet of finite resources with a population set to rise to 9 billion people by 2050,” said Achim Steiner, UN under-secretary general and executive director of the UN Environment Programme .

Teeb IN NUMBERS

US$50bn – The annual loss of opportunity due to the current over-exploitation of global fisheries. Competition between highly subsidised industrial fishing fleets coupled with poor regulation and weak enforcement of existing rules has led to over-exploitation of most commercially valuable fish stocks, reducing the income from global marine fisheries by US$50bn annually, compared with a more sustainable fishing scenario (World Bank and FAO 2009).

€153bn – Insect pollinators are nature’s multibillion-dollar providers. For 2005 the total economic value of insect pollination was estimated at €153bn. This represents 9.5% of world agricultural output for human food in 2005 (Gallai et al 2009)

US$30bn – 172bn The annual value of human welfare benefits provided by coral reefs. Although just covering 1.2% of the world’s continent shelves, coral reefs are home to an estimated 1-3 million species including more than a quarter of all marine fish species (Allsopp et al 2009). Thirty million people in coastal and island communities are totally reliant on reef-based resources as their primary means of food production, income and livelihood (Gomez et al 1994, Wilkinson 2004). Estimates of the value of human welfare benefits provided by coral reefs range from US$30bn (Cesar et al 2003) to US$172bn annually (Martinez et al 2007)

US$ 20-67m (over four years)The benefits of tree planting in the city of Canberra. Local authorities in Canberra, Australia, have planted 400,000 trees to regulate microclimate, reduce pollution and thereby improve urban air quality, reduce energy costs for air conditioning as well as store and sequester carbon. These benefits are expected to amount to US$20-67m over the period 2008-2012, in terms of the value generated or savings realised for the City (Brack 2002).

US$6.5bn – The amount saved by New York, by investing in payments to maintain natural water purification services in the Catskills watershed (US$1-1.5bn) rather than opt for the man-made solution of a filtration plant (US$6-8bn plus US$ 300-500m a year operating costs). (Perrot-Maitre and Davis 2001).

50 – The number of (rupees) millionaires in Hiware Bazaar, Indiaas the result of regenerating 70 hectares of degraded forests. This led to the number of active wells in the surrounding area doubling, grass production increasing and income from agriculture increasing due to the enhancement of local ecosystem services (Teeb case mainly based on Neha Sakhuja).

Conservation is quite literally vital. This is a challenge that calls for serious science, serious action – and serious money

This has been the International Year of Biodiversity and a UN gathering in Nagoya, Japan, is getting under way, charged with launching a 10-year strategy to avert the collapse of fisheries, conserve the Amazon rainforest and check the spread of invasive species.

The auguries are not good. A few weeks ago, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature confirmed the capture and subsequent deathof a rare antelope from the mountains of Vietnam and Laos. This animal – Pseudoryx nghetinhensis – was discovered only in 1992 and last spotted by an automatic camera in 1999. It has, however, never been seen alive by a working zoologist. So, it has been named and pronounced critically endangered by researchers who know almost nothing about it. Researchers know a little more about the crested gibbons that live in south-east Asia. They know that there are seven species in the genus, and that one is now down to 100 individuals, and another to about 20. These species have just been declared the world’s rarest apes.

The story is no happier closer to home. In March IUCN confirmed that 9% of Europe’s 435 butterfly species and 11% of the saproxylic beetles that live in rotting wood are threatened with extinction, for the same reason that the crested gibbons could swing through the trees into oblivion: human pressure on habitat. Likewise, last year more than 1,200 bird species were classified by IUCN as threatened with extinction. Does it matter? Yes: civilisation is built on life’s diversity. We survive only on the bounty of the living world and the rocks beneath, and even coal and oil were once living things. Biodiversity delivers fuel, fibres, fabrics, all food and most medicines: it also hums away unobserved, pollinating crops and recycling the planet’s air, water and nutrients. Without the saproxylic beetles, the forests would be full of dead trees, and soon there would be no forests. So conservation is quite literally vital.

Extinction is a natural companion to evolution, but mass extinction is a dangerous strategy. Yet humans are unthinkingly obliterating the planet’s species at a rate at least 1,000 times faster than normal, unthinking because this obliteration is accompanied by massive ignorance. Around 1.9 million species have been described, but nobody knows whether the world is home to seven million of them, or 70 million. This is a challenge that calls for serious science, serious action, and of course, serious money. Will this challenge be met? Britain once led the world in such science. The word from Whitehall is that scientific research which is “not commercially useful” is at risk in today’s spending review. Such an attitude could hardly be more short-sighted, or more dangerous.

Instead of spending taxpayers’ money propping up factory farms, UK government should support planet-friendly farming

In South America, the relentless growth of soy cropping is destroying rain forest and traditional farming systems. Photograph: Paulo Whitaker/Reuters

Mankind has a problem. We’re heating the Earth and destroying its ecosystems so fast that we’re killing off life as we know it. The fragile world around us, from rainforest canopies to marine life in our oceans, is the life support system we all depend on – for food, for shelter, for clean air. But we’re trashing it, quickly, many habitats at a time, and putting ourselves in grave danger within our lifetimes.

The overriding challenge of our generation is to protect the world around us – there is no planet B. We must halt biodiversity loss before it is too late and precious species go for good. Reducing our ecological footprint goes hand in hand with tackling climate change. It means putting the breaks on our damaging consumption habits and living fairly within our environmental limits – making wiser use of resources and clean energy.

The Guardian’s Biodiversity 100 campaign is one way of saying enough’s enough. Taking collective action to ask governments to protect ecosystems is the best way of getting our voices heard. National targets for protecting biodiversity have been missed year after year, but the meeting of the Convention on Biological Diversity in Japan this October is a chance to put that right – and it’s up to all of us to hold world leaders to account.

Yes it’s an international problem and yes every nation can help solve it, but it’s only fair that rich countries take the lead. We can’t criticise others until our own house is in order – and the UK has a lot to put right. Friends of the Earth’s 2008 report What’s feeding our food? revealed an unsavoury truth: rainforests and wildlife in South America are being destroyed to make way for vast soy plantations to grow animal feed for Britain’s factory farms. The very sausage on your barbecue or burger in your bun is costing forest habitats – it’s enough to leave a bitter taste in your mouth.

Many unique ecosystems like the Atlantic Forest and Cerrado grasslands in South America are being decimated by soy farming and cattle ranching. The Atlantic Forest, which runs along the eastern coast of Brazil and inland to Paraguay, Argentina and Uruguay, is one of the world’s biodiversity hotspots. It is home to around 8,000 unique plant species and more than 20 critically endangered species including the white-collared kite, and black-faced lion tamarin. 92 per cent of its amphibians are unique to the area. It’s shocking that agricultural activity here has shrunk the forest to less than a tenth of its original size, as trees have been cleared to make way for ranches and soy plantations, and small farmers pushed deeper into the forests. Worrying too, that in 2010, the region of Brazil containing the remaining Atlantic Forest showed the biggest increase in soy plantations in the whole country.

Rainforest and wildlife in South East Asia are also being lost – this time in the EU’s drive for biofuels. But biofuels are far from the green energy solution big business says they are. The habitats of the orangutan and Sumatran tiger are being trashed in Malaysia and Indonesia to make way for biofuel crop, and in 2008 the UN estimated that if logging rates continue, virtually all rainforest there will be destroyed by 2013. Worse still, Friends of the Earth research in 2009 revealed that biofuels could even be contributing more carbon emissions than the fossil fuels they replace, equivalent to putting half a million extra cars on the roads.

To stop this habitat destruction – and the additional atmospheric carbon that is exacerbating climate change – there needs to be some urgent rethinking. The good news is we know the solutions – but now we must use them. Instead of spending taxpayers’ money propping up factory farms, the UK government should be backing planet-friendly farming.Friends of the Earth’s recent Pastures New report shows that half of the animal feed imported to the UK could be replaced with home-grown alternatives – saving an area of forest the size of the Yorkshire Dales every year. More than 40,000 people have backed our campaign so far – and we’ve got a Sustainable Livestock Bill in parliament as a result. If successful it will overhaul UK farming, benefiting both farmers in Britain and biodiversity here and abroad – so we’re urging MPs to back it.

Similarly the EU’s target to fuel 10% of road transport with biofuels by 2020 is impossible to reach sustainably – the expansion of plantations for biofuel crops such as palm oil is the main driver of deforestation in south-east Asia. The UK should drop its share and promote greener alternatives to driving instead. More than half of UK car journeys are less than five miles long and many of these could be completed by other means. The government should fund local schemes that get people walking, cycling and using the bus, and make rail a cheaper and more convenient option for longer trips.

2010 is the UN year of biodiversity, but the world’s species and habitats are millennia old. If we fail to take bold action to protect the colourful diversity of life on Earth, for the sake of the world’s people and future generations, the world will not only be greyer, but life-threatening for us and future generations.

Border Ranges National Park in New South Wales, Australia – pulling its weight?

(Image: Altrendo Travel/Getty)

To best protect threatened plants, inefficient national parks should be sold off and the proceeds used to buy more cost-effective ones.

So says Richard Fuller at the University of Queensland in St Lucia, Australia, who reckons that replacing 1 per cent of Australia’s protected areas could significantly increase the number of vegetation types – such as grasses and woodlands – being protected.

Worldwide, there are 100,000 regions dedicated to biodiversity maintenance, covering 12 per cent of countries’ land and territorial waters.

“Historically, a lot of these areas were designated because we couldn’t use them for economic or agriculture purposes, not for their biodiversity value,” says Fuller. “Consequently, many species and habitats remain inadequately protected.” In some of the world’s protected areas, for example, up to 83 per cent of threatened plants are found outside protected areas.

Fuller says environmentalists who try only to increase the number of protected sites are effectively “adding to an inefficient system”. Instead, he says, governments should sell off expensive land of low conservation value and buy new sites instead.

Cutting up Australia

Fuller’s team has developed a mathematical model to test their theory in Australia. The group divided the country’s landmass into around 65,000 sections before assigning each a “conservation value” based on the rarity of the vegetation type within it: higher values were given to areas where more native vegetation has been lost since 1750, when Europeans began widespread clearance.

They then divided each section’s conservation value by its financial value, enabling them to rank currently protected areas in terms of cost-effectiveness. In the model, the least cost-effective areas were sold off and the funds used to buy more cost-effective sites.

For a vegetation type to be considered as “protected” in the team’s model, 15 per cent of the land area it covered in 1750 must lie in protected areas. Currently, only 18 out of 60 Australian vegetation types are protected by this measure. Replacing just 1 per cent of the least cost-effective areas boosted the number to 54. “We get an enormous increase in efficiency without spending more money,” says Fuller.

Starting debate

“It’s a logical approach with obvious benefits for protected biodiversity,” says Jon Nevill, an environmental consultant in Hampton, Victoria, Australia. “But I have no confidence that governments could effectively manage such a difficult programme.”

Martin Taylor, a protected areas policy manager at environmental campaign group WWF-Australia, is less complimentary. He says the idea of “trading off protected areas to buy theoretically better ones” is “quite horrifying”.

Sacrificing a protected area based solely on vegetation types without consideration of native animals or local geography is troublesome, he says. “No area can be written off so lightly as these authors do.”

Fuller defends his approach, saying the study is just a demonstration. “If this idea was to be put into practice you would need to consider these other values.”

“All we wanted to do was show how significantly and quickly the gains could be made,” says Fuller. “We wanted to start a debate about how best to protect our environment.”

Journal reference: Nature, DOI: 10.1038/nature09180