04/17/00 -- Report Issues Environmental Warning

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WORLDWIDE FOREST/BIODIVERSITY CAMPAIGN NEWS

Report Issues Environmental Warning

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Forest Networking a Project of Forests.org

http://forests.org/ -- Forest Conservation Archives

http://www.eco-portal.com/ -- Environmental Search Engine

04/17/00

OVERVIEW & COMMENTARY

The threats posed by ecosystem decline are generally recognized, but

the implications have not yet become internalized in human behavior

and policy. The following study once again stresses what should be

obvious: ecosystem decline must be reversed or there will be

devastating implications for human development. Human society in all

its aspects - economics, society, politics, arts, etc. - is a subset

of, and totally dependent upon, ecological systems. We must start

acting like part of the whole. Interestingly, the new UN

commissioned report identifies growing information gaps on ecosystem

health and protection as being of a primary concern, despite the

continued advancement in information technologies. This project

seeks to help in some small way to fill this gap with the Eco-portal

at http://www.eco-portal.com/ , Forest Conservation Archives at

http://forests.org and the Climate Ark http://www.climateark.org/ .

g.b.

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Title: Report issues environmental warning

Source: Associated Press

Date: April 17, 2000

Despite greater environmental awareness, growing demand for resources

is threatening the world's environmental health more than ever,

according to a United Nations-sponsored report that said humans

eventually will pay the price.

The broad decline of the world's ecosystems - the interaction of

organisms with their physical environment - must be reversed or there

"could be devastating implications" for human development, the study

said.

"For too long in both rich and poor nations, development priorities

have focused on how much humanity can take from our ecosystems, with

little attention to the impact of our actions," concludes the report

released Sunday by the World Resources Institute, a private

environmental think tank.

The report reflects the findings of 197 scientists.

The preliminary findings, based on a two-year study, are to be

presented in detail at a meeting in September of the U.N. General

Assembly. It will be key in deciding whether the United Nations will

direct a broader study on the state of the world's environmental

well-being, similar to an examination of climate change under way

since the early 1990s.

The study was sponsored by the U.N. Development Programme, the U.N.

Environmental Programme and the World Bank. It assessed the current

health of agriculture, coastal areas, forests, fresh water

environments and grasslands.

"We can continue blindly altering Earth's ecosystems, or we can learn

to use them more sustainably," Klaus Topfer, executive director of

the U.N. Environmental Programme, said in a statement accompanying

the report.

Among the scientists' findings:

Half of the world's wetlands have been lost during the past 100

years.

Dams and other diversions have fragmented 60 percent of the world's

largest rivers, and 20 percent of the world's freshwater fish have

disappeared or are in danger of vanishing.

Half of the world's forests have disappeared and tropical

deforestation continues at an alarming rate. About 9 percent of all

tree species are at risk of vanishing.

Fishing fleets are taking in much greater amounts of fish than the

oceans can replace. As a result, 70 percent of the world's fish

stocks are being overfished.

Two-thirds of the world's agricultural lands have suffered from

significant soil degradation over the last 50 years, and a third of

the world's original forests have been converted to agriculture.

"Governments and businesses must rethink some basic assumptions about

how we measure and plan economic growth," James D. Wolfensohn,

president of the World Bank, said in a statement.

The report was released as many environmental activists were in

Washington protesting that the World Bank and International Monetary

Fund too often support, through their lending practices, activities

harmful to the global environment.

While the U.N. report catalogued broad areas of concern and the need

to change attitudes about ecosystem protection, it also emphasized

the need for greater research.

Despite the availability of satellite imaging, remote sensing, the

Internet and other techniques, there is a growing information gap on

ecosystem health and protection, the report said.

"The dimensions of the information gap are large and growing, rather

than shrinking as we would expect," explained Jonathan Lash,

president of the World Resources Institute, adding that "if we are to

make sound ecosystem management decisions" in the century ahead, that

gap must be closed.

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