Archived press release

Millennium ecosystem assessment

31 March 2005

United Nations goals to halve poverty and hunger by 2015 will not be met, and hunger and malnutrition will remain problem even in 2050 unless governments pay greater attention to what nature does for humanity, says a UN report published 30 March 2005.

The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment [1], prepared by 1300 scientists from 95 countries, says humans have changed the world more rapidly over the last 50 years than in any other time in history but billions of people remain in poverty and the destruction of the natural world is an increasingly significant barrier to the achievement of the UN Millennium Development Goals [2].

Friends of the Earth has welcomed the Millennium Assessment's analysis of the problems but is concerned that the report doesn't identify who bears most responsibility for environmental damage or provide the detail on the solutions needed to combat the problem. The need for urgent and radical action therefore may be ignored by governments.

Roger Higman, Friends of the Earth's Environmental Coordinator said:

"The Millennium Assessment cuts to the heart of one of the greatest challenges facing humanity - that we cannot maintain high standards of living, let alone relieve poverty, if we don't look after the Earth's life support systems.

Yet it hasn't gone far enough in specifying the radical solutions needed. At the end of the day, if we are to respect the limits imposed by nature, and ensure the well-being of all humanity, we must manage the global economy to produce a fairer distribution of the Earth's resources."

Key findings from the report include:

• The atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide has increased by almost a third since 1750. 60% of that increase has happened since 1959.
• More land has been converted to cropland since 1945 than during the whole of the 18th and 19th centuries combined
• One quarter of the world's coral reefs and about 35 per cent of the mangroves, in countries surveyed, were destroyed or badly degraded in the last decades of the 20th century
• More than half of all the synthetic nitrogen fertilizer ever used has been used since 1985, causing water pollution problems around the world.
• 15 out of 24 'ecosystem services' [3] assessed in the study are being degraded or used unsustainably - e.g. at least a quarter of commercially important fish stocks are over harvested and 15-35% of irrigation withdrawals could exceed replenishment rates
• Pressures on ecosystems may be increasing the chance of sudden changes which could harm human well-being - examples include new diseases, coastal dead zones, collapsing fisheries, invasive species and regional climate change
• Levels of poverty remain high and inequalities are growing - over one billion people survive on less than $1 a day, 856 million are under-nourished and 1-2 billion are affected by water scarcity
• The degradation of ecosystems is harming many of the world's poorest people and is sometimes the principal factor causing poverty - 1.8 million people die annually due to inadequate hygiene, sanitation or water supply
• The Millennium Development Goal to halve poverty and hunger between 1990 and 2015 is not achieved and hunger and child malnutrition remain problems even in 2050
• Wealthy countries cannot insulate themselves from ecosystem degradation, which is expected to get significantly worse over the next fifty years

The Assessment says significant changes in policy could reduce many of the bad effects from rising pressures on ecosystems, although the changes required are large and not happening. It says better governance; tax incentives; changes in consumption; new technology and more research could help humanity manage ecosystems better - so that people continue to enjoy the benefit of nature's bounty.

Friends of the Earth believes the challenge of managing ecosystem services requires major changes to the global economic system, including:

• Greater government intervention in the economy to manage resource consumption and limit pollution
• New trade rules to help governments protect the environment and their peoples and to strengthen global environmental agreements
• Reductions in northern resource use so as to enable increased southern consumption to end poverty, while ensuring environmental limits are respected
• Greater regulation of transnational corporations to make company directors liable for the environmental damage they do

Notes

[1] The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment is a joint project of by range of UN and international scientific agencies and NGOs. It is the largest ever scientific assessment of the impact that changes to ecosystems will have on human well-being. UN agencies involved include the Convention on Biological Diversity, the Food and Agriculture Organisation, the Global Environment Facility, the Ramsar Convention, UNDP, UNESCO, UNEP, WHO and the World Bank. Scientific bodies include the International Council for Science and IUCN. The principal NGO involved is the World Resources Institute.

[2] The Millennium Development Goals are an internationally agreed set of goals and targets to guide international development. They are to:

1. Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
   Target for 2015: Halve the proportion of people living on less than a dollar a day and those who suffer from hunger.
2. Achieve universal primary education
   Target for 2015: Ensure that all boys and girls complete primary school.
3. Promote gender equality and empower women
   Targets for 2005 and 2015: Eliminate gender disparities in primary and secondary education preferably by 2005, and at all levels by 2015.
4. Reduce child mortality
   Target for 2015: Reduce by two-thirds the mortality rate among children under five.
5. Improve maternal health
   Target for 2015: Reduce by three-quarters the ratio of women dying in childbirth.
6. Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases
   Target for 2015: Halt and begin to reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS and the
   incidence of malaria and other major diseases.
7. Ensure environmental sustainability
   Targets:
   
   • Integrate the principles of sustainable development into country policies and programmes and reverse the loss of environmental resources.
   • By 2015, reduce by half the proportion of people without access to safe drinking water.
   • By 2020 achieve significant improvement in the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers.
8. Develop a global partnership for development
   Targets:
   
   • Develop further an open trading and financial system that includes a commitment to good governance, development and poverty reduction - nationally and internationally.
   • Address the least developed countries' special needs, and the special needs of landlocked and small island developing States.
   • Deal comprehensively with developing countries' debt problems.
   • Develop decent and productive work for youth.
   • In cooperation with pharmaceutical companies, provide access to affordable essential drugs in developing countries.
   • In cooperation with the private sector, make available the benefits of new technologies - especially information and communications technologies.

[3] "Ecosystem services" is a scientific term for all the benefits that ecosystems provide for humanity. They include a stable climate, fresh air, clean water, fertile soils, pollination of crops, food and materials, waste clean-up and nutrient recycling and so on.

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Published by Friends of the Earth Trust