Environtmental damage 'causes people misery'

Environtmental damage 'causes people misery'

A'an Suryana, The Jakarta Post, Nusa Dua, Bali

High population growth, industrialization and inefficient
lifestyles have damaged the environment greatly in the last 30
years, bringing misery to people, according to a report by the
United Nations Environment Program (UNEP).

If there was no commitment or concrete action by all
stakeholders of the earth, especially the governments, to deal
with the deteriorating environment, more devastating impacts to
both the earth and its people could occur in the next 30 years,
according to a UNEP report presented on Thursday at the
preparatory committee (PrepCom) meeting for the World Summit on
Sustainable Development here.

The report, entitled Global Environment Outlook-3 (GEO-3),
provided an assessment of environmental trends since 1972, the
year the Stockholm Conference on Environment was held.

The report followed two other reports GEO-1 and GEO-2000,
which were launched in 1997 and 1999 respectively.

The GEO-3 report accused human activities, including expansion
of agricultural land, over-harvesting of industrial wood and
illegal logging as the main culprits in rapid deforestation.

During the 1990s, a net loss in global forests was about 94
million hectares. Forests, which cover around one third of the
Earth's land surface (3,866 million hectares), have declined by
2.4 percent a year since 1990.

Deforestation has long been blamed for various environmental
problems, as deforestation adversely affects water catchment, and
often leads to flooding, drought and oversiltation of rivers, not
to mention the increase in greenhouse gases.

Due to climate change and environmental degradation, people
have experienced more natural disasters in the last decade.

It is estimated by the report that the number of people
affected by disasters jumped from an average of 147 million a
year in the 1980s to 211 million a year in the 1990s. Global
financial losses from natural disasters were, in 1999, estimated
to cost over US$100 billion.

According to the report, the failures to mitigate and to
tackle the damage could lead to catastrophe in the future, as
more people would be affected by the damage.

Klaus Toepfer, executive director of UNEP, said that what
would happen in the coming decades would depend on "what we,
especially the government, are doing now."

"The scenarios do clearly show that today's policy decisions
will have an impact long into the future. Different decisions can
lead us towards very different futures and the future is very
much in our hands," he said.

Toepfer demanded parties negotiating in the preparatory
committee meeting to produce concrete action plans, concrete time
tables and an iron will from all sides to turn the promises made
in Rio into reality.

The UNEP report said that if world governments continued to
give priority to short-term economics, or, in the words of the
report "market first," then, environmental destruction would
continue unabated.

Failure to stop deforestation could lead to major destruction
and disturbance of habitats and wildlife by 2032.

Over 70 percent of the world's land could be affected with the
highest impact in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Meanwhile, failure to meet the ever increasing population's
demand for clean water could also increase the number of people
living in areas with severe water stress.

It is estimated by the report that 55 percent of the global
population could be affected by a water crisis by 2032, up from
around 40 percent currently.

Despite the bleak outlook, the report said that concrete
measures to sustain the development and to protect the
environment could curtail this devastating scenario of the
environment, which UNEP called "sustainability first."

Under the sustainability first scenario, most regions in the
world in 2032 would see the areas under water stress remaining
more or less constant at 40 percent, as more efficient management
of water reduces water withdrawal, especially for irrigation.

Deforestation could also be held in check, especially in Latin
America and the Caribbean.