Change in the global ecology and the future of development

Kishan Khoday, Jakarta

May 22 marks the International Day for Biodiversity Protection. While most of us think of biodiversity as species facing pressures of extinction, biological diversity is also defined at its higher levels as the diversity of ecosystems found in nature.

If the Earth is seen as a body, then the various ecosystems that make it up -- forest and woodland systems, drylands, freshwater and marine systems -- are its organs; each performing different functions and services that sustain the whole -- food and water supply and climate regulation to name but a few.

While many global studies have begun the work of understanding such issues as species extinction, climate change, and pollution, there is still a major gap in understanding how these issues play out at the more holistic level of ecosystems.

How are such changes impacting the overall ecosystems in which they exist, and how will the changing nature of ecosystems at the global level affect human well-being and development prospects in the 21st century?

Should we not be concerned with preserving -- and when possible expanding -- the substantive freedoms of people today without compromising the ability of future generations to have similar or more freedoms?

Access to education, health and other public services are critical for social security and human well-being, and so too is maintaining what may be called an "ecological security system".

Ecosystems play a vital role in providing food, water and climate regulation services. And their maintenance will be critical for achieving poverty reduction over the next decade, as well as in sustaining such achievements in the decades thereafter. Mark Malloch Brown, the Administrator of UNDP, put it best when he recently stated that the issue is no longer "biodiversity or development" but rather "biodiversity for development."

Human demand for ecosystem services is growing around the world. Food production must increase to meet the needs of an additional three billion people over the next 30 years. One third of the world population is currently facing water scarcity and this proportion will double by 2030.

Another one third of the world's population depends on wood as a source of fuel, a demand that is expected to double by 2050. Yet as we enter the new century, the capacity of many ecosystems to provide such service is in decline.

In order to respond to this challenge, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan launched a "Millennium Ecosystem Assessment" (MA) in 2001, a US$23 million global initiative involving representatives of international conventions, UN agencies, scientific organizations and leaders from civil society, indigenous organizations and the private sector.

An inter-disciplinary team of over 500 scientists and development practitioners from 80 countries leads the MA work program. It is designed to meet the needs of decision makers and the public for scientific information concerning the consequences of ecosystem change for human well-being and options for responding to those changes.

This team is assessing ecological change and human well-being dynamics under four distinct development scenarios from 2000- 2050. The full global report will be published and launched by the UN Secretary-General in early 2005.

The results are meant to support actions that enhance the ability of ecosystems to bring long-term benefit to the poor, many of whom already live in fragile and threatened ecosystems.

Many of the regions considered by the international community as priority targets for poverty reduction are located in predominantly dryland ecosystems (Sub-Saharan Africa, Southwest Asia, Central Asia, etc.). The drylands account for 40 percent of the planet's land surface and host two billion people, including more than 50 percent of the world's population that is currently living on less than $1 per day.

Most of those in poverty are engaged in agriculture or related activities so that prospects for enhancing poverty reduction, food security, water supply, sanitation, etc., are limited by poor soils and scarcity of freshwater resulting from low precipitation and high evaporation in these regions.

Given the critical ecological issues in dryland regions, it is no surprise that the one-third of humanity living in dryland ecosystems also lags far behind in human development indicators.

Other regions pose other examples of the critical link between ecosystems and well-being. It has been estimated that about 50 percent of the planet's terrestrial species diversity is located on just 2 percent of its land surface area, with Southeast Asia being a priority region given current and future rates of conversion to agriculture and forestry.

Marine species are also threatened with illegal fishing that has unprecedented consequences on the sustainability of the region's fish stocks and the livelihoods and food security for millions of fish dependent communities.

In Indonesia, some have estimated that the majority of species diversity now resides in Eastern Indonesia, with Papua hosting the world's largest mangrove forest and a major proportion of the world's coral species while also bordering the Arafura Sea to its south -- with the regions highest levels of marine biodiversity.

Development activities to achieve the MDG's and poverty reduction in all regions will require a strong emphasis on ecosystem linkages, in terms of new opportunities for sustainable use of resources brought by new approaches to local governance and technology transfer, as well as new challenges brought about by global climate change and other ecological factors.

In order to make the right development policy choices to enhance the future well-being of humanity, it is critical that we understand the essence of ecological change. To do this, we must not only develop ways to measure the human well-being and ecosystem change dynamic at various scales but we have to find meaningful ways to connect these two measures.

The writer currently serves as a Lead Author of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment and may be reached at kishan.khoday@undp.org. The views expressed herein do not necessarily reflect those of UNDP or any of the members of its Executive Board and of its program countries.