All of Earth’s Systems on rapid decline
by Stephen Leahy
UXBRIDGE (IPS) - Protecting bits of nature here and there will not
prevent humanity from losing our life support system. Even if areas
dedicated to conserving plants, animals, and other species that provide
Earth’s life support system increased tenfold, it would not be enough
without dealing with the big issues of the 21st century: population,
overconsumption and inefficient resource use.
Without dealing with those big issues, humanity will need 27 planet
Earths by 2050, a new study estimates.
The size and number of protected areas on land and sea has increased
dramatically since the 1980s, now totalling over 100,000 in number and
covering 17 million square kilometres of land and two million square
kilometres of oceans, a new study reported Thursday.
But impressive as those numbers look, all indicators reveal species
going extinct faster than ever before, despite all the additions of new
parks, reserves and other conservation measures, according to the study
published in the journal Marine Ecology Progress Series.
“It is amazing to me that we haven’t dealt with this failure of
protected areas to slow biodiversity losses,” said lead author Camilo
Mora of University of Hawaii at Manoa.
“We were surprised the evidence from the past 30 years was so clear,”
Mora told IPS.
The ability of protected areas to address the problem of biodiversity
loss - the decline in diversity and numbers of all living species - has
long been overestimated, the study reported. The reality is that most
protected areas are not truly protected. Many are “paper parks”,
protected in name only. Up to 70 percent of marine protected areas are
paper parks, Mora said.
The study shows global expenditures on protected areas today are
estimated at six billion dollars per year, and many areas are
insufficiently funded for effective management. Effectively managing
existing protected areas requires an estimated 24 billion dollars per
year - four times the current expenditure.
“Ongoing biodiversity loss and its consequences for humanity’s
welfare are of great concern and have prompted strong calls for
expanding the use of protected areas as a remedy,” said co-author Peter
Sale, a marine biologist and assistant director of the United Nations
University’s Institute for Water, Environment and Health.
“Protected areas are a false hope in terms of preventing the loss of
biodiversity,” Sale told IPS.
The authors based their study on existing literature and global data
on human threats and biodiversity loss.
When asked about the 2010 global biodiversity protection agreement in
Nagoya, Japan to put 17 percent of land and 10 percent of oceans on the
planet under protection by 2020, Sale said it was “very unlikely those
targets will be reached” due to conflicts between growing needs for food
and other resources.
“Even if those targets were achieved, it is not going to stop the
decline in biodiversity,” he said.
One reason for this is “leakage”. Fence off one forest and the
logging pressure increases in another. Make one coral reef off limits to
fishing and the fishing boats go the next reef.
Another reason protected areas aren’t the answer is that fences or
patrol boats can’t keep out the impacts of pollution or climate change.
Finally, the pressures on the planet’s resources are escalating so
quickly that “the problem is running away from the solution”, he said.
The loss of biodiversity is a major issue because it is humanity’s
only life-support system, delivering everything from food, to clean
water and air, to recreation and tourism, to novel chemicals that drive
our advanced civilization, said Mora. Right now the dominant strategy to
halt the loss of biodiversity is with protected areas.
“That’s putting all our eggs in one basket,” he said. “A major shift
is needed to deal with the roots of the problem.”
The ever-expanding footprint of humanity is the primary cause of
global biodiversity loss. When the world’s population was five billion
people in 1985, the amount of nature’s resources being used or impacted
became more than the planet could sustain indefinitely according to many
estimates, said Mora.
The world population, currently at seven billion, is well beyond
Earth’s ability to sustain.
By 2050, with a projected population of 10 billion people and without
a change in consumption patterns, the cumulative use of natural
resources will amount to the productivity of up to 27 planet Earths, the
study found.
Sustaining the current seven billion people on the planet requires a
major shift in resource use. At present, the average U.S. citizen’s
ecological footprint is about 10 hectares, while a Haitian’s is less
than one. The planet could sustain us if everyone’s footprint averaged
two ha, Mora said.
If there are more people, then there are simply fewer resources
available for everyone, so population control will be needed along the
lines of “one child per woman”, he said.
“I’m from Colombia, it blows my mind that some governments in the
developing world pay women to have more children,” he added.
Hardly anyone is focused on the pressing need for a major shift, said
Sale.
“The awareness of the public about this is shockingly low,” he noted.
What is needed is for humanity as a mass to change direction, he said.
“But can we find the hook, the lever that’s needed to make that
happen?” Sale asked.
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