Nick Nuttall: No one year will define the future of life on Earth

In 2002 nations had agreed to substantially reverse the rate of loss of biodiversity by 2010. It did not happen: no single country—developed or developing—achieved the goal.

Perhaps the only bright spot in an otherwise sobering reality was some evidence that the target had been met among European species of bats, according to data collected by the UNEP-linked Eurobats agreement.

However, while 2010 began as a moment of reflection and of failure it rapidly transformed into one of extraordinary and perhaps—when viewed through the lens of history—a moment when nations re-engaged with a greater sense of purpose and determination on the biodiversity challenge.

For several years, scientists, a significant number of governments and non-governmental organizations have been calling for a kind of ‘IPCC-for-nature’ to bridge the gap between the mounting levels of research and a defining policy response.

UNEP, along with the World Meteorological Organisation, established the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in the late 1980s to achieve a similar bridge between climate science and policy-makers.

Indeed the IPCC has proven to be the catalyst for such instruments as the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol—the first emission reduction treaty—alongside the evolution of various climate funds and mechanisms aimed at countering global warming and accelerating climate adaptation.

A similar body was needed to define the response among nations to the loss of biodiversity and ecosystems, supporters had claimed.

After around two years or so of negotiations, facilitated by the UNEP, an historic decision and an important piece in the response jigsaw puzzle was taken in Busan, Republic of Korea, in June 2010.

Here nations gave the ‘green-light’ for the establishment of an Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services or IPBES which was endorsed by the UN General Assembly.

The second challenge for 2010 was strengthening the treaty, established in 1992, to boost the prospects for biodiversity—namely the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) whose secretariat is administered by UNEP.

The CBD has three pillars—conservation, sustainable use and access and benefit sharing of genetic resources. But the third pillar had remained absent since the birth of the CBD.

If the previous century was an industrial age, the 21st century will be increasingly a biological ones based on the genetics of life which holds the secrets to new generations of pharmaceuticals up to new strains of crops; more sustainable products and other key applications.

The lion’s share of that genetic treasure trove is in the developing.

In October, at the meeting of the Conference of the Parties of the CBD in Nagoya , Japan , governments finally agreed to the establishment of an international regime on access and benefit sharing of genetic resources.

It will establish the norms and standards—the ground rules if you will—on how the profits, arising from say a new cancer drug based on a plant or other living organism, will be shared with the country and communities of origin.

This could lead to the transfer of significant funding from North to South, assisting in providing incentives for conservation while tackling poverty.

It forms part of what one might call the ‘missing link’ in forging a comprehensive response to biodiversity loss: namely the economics.

In the past the true value and economic-importance of the world’s multi-trillion dollar natural or nature-based assets were all but invisible in national and global accounts.

But this has changed in 2010, in part as a result of The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity—an initiative requested by G8 and developing country environment ministers, which is hosted by UNEP.

In Nagoya , TEEB which is a central stream of UNEP’s wide ranging Green Economy Initiative published its final synthesis report. Some of the findings include:

Insect pollinators are nature’s multi-billion dollar providers. For 2005 the total economic value of insect pollination was estimated at Euros 153 billion. This represents 9.5% of world agricultural output for human food in 2005.

US$30 billion – US$172 billion The annual value of human welfare benefits provided by coral reefs. Although just covering 1.2% of the world’s continent shelves, coral reefs are home to an estimated 1-3 million species including more than a quarter of all marine fish species. Some 30 million people in coastal and island communities are totally reliant on reef-based resources as their primary means of food production, income and livelihood Estimates of the value of human welfare benefits provided by coral reefs range from US$30 billion to US$172 billion annually.

US$20 -US$67 million (over four years)

The benefits of tree planting in the city of Canberra. Local authorities in Canberra , Australia , have planted 400,000 trees to regulate microclimate, reduce pollution and thereby improve urban air quality, reduce energy costs for air conditioning as well as store and sequester carbon. These benefits are expected to amount to some US$20-67 million over the period 2008-2012, in terms of the value generated or savings realized for the city.

US$6.5 billion

The amount saved by New York, by investing in payments to maintain natural water purification services in the Catskills watershed (US$1-1.5 billion) rather than opt for the man-made solution of a filtration plant (US$ 6-8 billion plus US$300-500 million/year operating costs). (Perrot-Maitre and Davis 2001).

50--The number of (rupees) millionaires in Hiware Bazaar , India as the result of regenerating 70 hectares of degraded forests. This led to the number of active wells in the surrounding area doubling, grass production increasing and income from agriculture increasing due to the enhancement of local ecosystem services.

It is through the work of initiative such as TEEB that the value of the services provided by, for example, the Mau forest complex in Kenya are also coming to the fore which is triggering in turn restoration and rehabilitation projects.

Indeed it is estimated now that the Mau generates services of around $1.5 billion a year for the Kenyan and regional economy in terms of provision of water for rivers and hydro-power up to moisture for the tea industry and climate protection..

In Nagoya , some countries such as Brazil and India announced that they would be carrying out similar TEEB-like exercises bringing the global concept to the national economic level.

Meanwhile the World Bank in partnership with UNEP and others is also launching a green accounting initiative to assist several developing economies incorporate the economics of nature into national accounts including Colombia and Mexico .

At the same time governments also announced a new strategic plan including fresh targets for addressing biodiversity loss to be met by 2020.

For example governments agreed to increase the extent of land-based protected areas and national parks to 17 per cent of the Earth’s land surface up from around 12.5 per cent today, and to extend marine protected areas to 10 per cent, up from under one per cent now.

Other elements of the plan include lifting the extinction risk from know threatened species by 2020.

So while 2010 began with concern and alarm it has perhaps ended on a far more positively than many may have imagined.

No one year will define the future of life on Earth, but this year may go down in the annals of history as a point in time when humanity began to really start valuing the wealth and richness of the natural world, and also began acting on that knowledge.

It would be wrong to boil down nature to dollars and cents, rupees or shillings, yuan or pounds and pence—but without the economic argument the world’s forests to freshwaters may continue to be sidelined in favour of the latest infrastructure development or unsustainable exploitation.

As Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary General and UNEP Executive Director said in Nagoya: "In the past only traditional sectors such as manufacturing and mining to retailing, construction and energy generation were uppermost in the minds of economic planners and ministers of finance, development and trade”.

“TEEB has brought to the world’s attention that nature's goods and services are equal, if not far more central, to the wealth of nations including the poor--a fact that will be increasingly the case on a planet of finite resources with a population set to rise to nine billion people by 2050”.