The Earth We Are Killing.

My previous post was occasioned by my reading an article on the release of the Synthesis Report of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA). The full report (pdf, 219pp) is available for review in its pre-printing final draft, but a summary of the document, Living Beyond Our Means: Natural Assets and Human Well-being (pdf), contains the most important, first-pass statements from the report. The MA's Board has distilled from the report 10 Key Messages and Conclusions, which I reproduce in full here:

• Everyone in the world depends on nature and ecosystem services to provide the conditions for a decent, healthy, and secure life.


• Humans have made unprecedented changes to ecosystems in recent decades to meet growing demands for food, fresh water, fiber, and energy.


• These changes have helped to improve the lives of billions, but at the same time they weakened nature’s ability to deliver other key services such as purification of air and water, protection from disasters, and the provision of medicines.


• Among the outstanding problems identified by this assessment are the dire state of many of the world’s fish stocks; the intense vulnerability of the 2 billion people living in dry regions to the loss of ecosystem services, including water supply; and the growing threat to ecosystems from climate change and nutrient pollution.


• Human activities have taken the planet to the edge of a massive wave of species extinctions, further threatening our own well-being.


• The loss of services derived from ecosystems is a significant barrier to the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals to reduce poverty, hunger, and disease.


• The pressures on ecosystems will increase globally in coming decades unless human attitudes and actions change.


• Measures to conserve natural resources are more likely to succeed if local communities are given ownership of them, share the benefits, and are involved in decisions.


• Even today’s technology and knowledge can reduce considerably the human impact on ecosystems. They are unlikely to be deployed fully, however, until ecosystem services cease to be perceived as free and limitless, and their full value is taken into account.


• Better protection of natural assets will require coordinated efforts across all sections of governments, businesses, and international institutions. The productivity of ecosystems depends on policy choices on investment, trade, subsidy, taxation, and regulation, among others.

The report itself conveys the Assessment's Four Main Findings [Very little of these should be a shock to anyone with a realistic view of living habits in the US!]:

• Over the past 50 years, humans have changed ecosystems more rapidly and extensively than in any comparable period of time in human history, largely to meet rapidly growing demands for food, fresh water, timber, fiber and fuel. This has resulted in a substantial and largely irreversible loss in the diversity of life on Earth.


• The changes that have been made to ecosystems have contributed to substantial net gains in human well-being and economic development, but these gains have been achieved at growing costs in the form of the degradation of many ecosystem services, increased risks of nonlinear changes, and the exacerbation of poverty for some groups of people. These problems, unless addressed, will substantially diminish the benefits that future generations obtain from ecosystems.


• The degradation of ecosystem services could grow significantly worse during the first half of this century and is a barrier to achieving the Millennium Development Goals.


• The challenge of reversing the degradation of ecosystems while meeting increasing demands for their services can be partially met under some scenarios that the MA has considered but these involve significant changes in policies, institutions and practices, that are not currently under way. Many options exist to conserve or enhance specific ecosystem services in ways that reduce negative tradeoffs or that provide positive synergies with other ecosystem services.

Finally, an html version of the report summarizes each of the 9 Questions by which the report is organized:

• How have ecosystems changed?


• How have ecosystem services and their uses changed?


• How have ecosystem changes affected human well-being and poverty alleviation?


• What are the most critical factors causing ecosystem changes?"


• How might ecosystems and their services change in the future under various plausible scenarios?


• Why are both global and sub-global assessments of ecosystem change useful?


• How do ecosystems change over time?


• What options exist to manage ecosystems sustainably?


• What are the most important uncertainties hindering decision-making concerning ecosystems?