Nature provides human society with a vast diversity of benefits such as food, fibres fuel, clean water, healthy soil, protection from floods, protection from soil erosion, medicines, storing carbon (important in the fight against climate change) and many more. Though our wellbeing is totally dependent upon these "ecosystem services" they are predominantly public goods with no markets and no prices, so they often are not detected by our current economic compass. As a result, due to the pressures from population growth, increasing consumption, changing diets, urbanisation and also climate change, biodiversity is declining and our ecosystems are being continuously degraded and we, in turn, are suffering the consequences.
Pavan Sukhdev (of Green Indian States Trust and Deutsche Bank) along with an international team of environmentalists and economists and associated individuals and organisations are working relentlessly to increase awareness and voice a call for evidence and action to policy makers, businesses and individuals alike.
This global scaled research is being done in two phases. Preliminary findings from the first phase are highlighted in the TEEB interim report (see here). It argues that if we do not adopt the right policies, the current decline in biodiversity and the related loss of ecosystem services will continue and in some cases even accelerate. Some ecosystems are likely to be damaged beyond repair – a serious consequence indeed. It awakens us to some jarring facts, for instance:
- 11% of the natural areas remaining in 2000 could be lost, chiefly as a result of conversion for agriculture, the expansion of infrastructure, and climate change - a land area as big as Australia
- Almost 40% of the land currently under low-impact forms of agriculture could be converted to intensive agricultural use, with further biodiversity losses
- 60% of coral reefs could be lost - even by 2030 - through fishing, pollution, diseases, invasive alien species, and coral bleaching due to climate change
- Provisioning and regulation of freshwater is perhaps the most obvious function of forest cover - which will be lost as that cover continues to depletes at an accelerating pace
The second phase of the research will take place in 2009 and 2010. The project is structured around one background report and several reports targeted towards specific groups of potential users of evaluation tools for biodiversity and ecosystem services.
Tomorrow's Company is proud to be a part of the TEEB venture, and this section is dedicated to increasing awareness of the issue. Here you will find content pieces, links to blogs, audio and video pieces throwing light on the issue.
Join us in our journey of being ecological forces for good.