Transcript Hamdallah Zidan

Biodiversity and Changes in the
Ecosystems: Consequences to
Sustainable Development
Hamdallh Zedan
Conference on Environmental Economics and Sustainable
Development
CBD
Alexandria, 25 October 2007
Today’s presentation
• Biological diversity underpins
ecosystem services needed for
human well-being
• Achieving the MDGs requires
awareness of the importance of
biological diversity for food security
and nutrition, human health and
ecosystem resilience
• Economic analysis of biodiversity
• Strategies for making valuation
relevant for decision-making
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Global Environmental Changes
Climate change
Loss of biological diversity
Land degradation and desertification
Deforestation and forest degradation
Depletion of stratospheric ozone
Pollution of fresh and marine waters
Accumulation of persistent organic pollutants
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Global Changes
Land use
Ocean use
Atmospheric Change
Halocarbons
Ozone
UV
radiation
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CO2
N2
- Acid rain
- Temperature
- Productivity
-N2 deposition
- Precipitation
- Biodiversity
Responsibility and Impacts
of Global Changes
Differ among countries and people
The rich contribute disproportionately
The poor and disadvantaged are the most vulnerable
Poverty and inequity exacerbate global changes
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Biodiversity loss and changes in the
ecosystems are the most serious
but the less felt
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or appreciated
What is ‘biodiversity’?
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Biodiversity is the variety of all life forms: the
different plants, animals and microorganisms, their
genes and the ecosystems of which they are a part.
It covers the terrestrial, marine and other aquatic
environments.
It is not static, but constantly changing. A concept
that emphasizes the interrelatedness of the biological
world.
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This variability can be considered at four
levels:
• Genetic (i.e. genes, nucleotides,
chromosomes, individuals);
• Species (i.e. kingdom, phyla, families,
subspecies, species, populations);
• Ecosystem (i.e. bioregions, landscapes,
habitats); and,
• Functional (i.e. ecosystem robustness,
resilience, goods and services).
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Direct Causes/Drivers of Change
(Human Induced Actions)
Land-use changes (degradation and
fragmentation of ecosystems)
Introductions/removal of species (e.g.
invasive alien species)
External inputs (e.g. fertilizer use, pest
control, pollution, irrigation)
Harvest and resource consumption (over
exploitation, unsustainable production and
consumption)
Technology adaptation
Climate change (additional stress)
Natural causes (e.g. floods, droughts,
volcanoes, evolution)
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Indirect Drivers of Biodiversity Loss
•
Economic (e.g. globalization, trade, market
and policy frameworks)
•
Demographic (e.g. population growth and
density)
•
Socio-political (e.g. governance, institutional
and legal frameworks)
•
Cultural and religious (e.g. choices about what
and how much to consume)
•
Science and technology
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What economics has to say about
biodiversity
The overriding goal of economics is to deliver
choice solutions that make society better off. As
the creation of value makes society better off,
three questions ought to be addressed:
•
•
•
Why is biodiversity valuable?
How can the value of biodiversity be estimated?
and,
How can the value of biodiversity be delivered to
society?
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Importance of biodiversity: Ecosystem Goods and
Services
Provisioning
Goods produced or
provided by
ecosystems
 food
 fresh water
 fuel wood
 fiber
 bio-chemicals
 genetic resources
Regulating
Benefits obtained from
regulation of
ecosystem
processes





climate control
disease control
flood control
waste
detoxification and
decomposition
drought
moderation
Cultural
Non-material benefits
obtained from
ecosystems
 spiritual
 recreational
 aesthetic
 inspirational
 educational
 communal
 symbolic
Supporting



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Services that maintain the conditions for life on earth.
Soil formation
Nutrient cycling
Pollination and seed dispersal
Biodiversity Contribution to
World Economy
• 40% of the world economy is derived
directly from biodiversity.
• aggregated annual value of ecosystem
services worldwide: US$ 18 trillion to
US$ 61 trillion ( similar to figures
resulting from all goods and services
produced by people).
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•
Diverse ecosystems are more productive than
non-diverse ones, because any group of
species can never fully exploit all potential
niches. Since human economic productivity is
largely reliant on Earth's ecosystems,
adequate bioproductivity needs to be
maintained.
•
Natural innovation found in biological
organisms rivals all known technologies
derived through synthetic means.
•
A single human genome has some three
billion bits of information but the human
species also has many variations.
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•
There are many millions of species of life
on the planet each with valuable
information. Many chemical formulae and
forty-five percent of all drugs have bioorigin.
•
Services and economic commodities that
biodiversity supplies to humankind are
essential for sustainable development and
achievement of the Millennium Development
Goals (MDGs).
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The Millennium Development Goals
Goal 1 - Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
Goal 2 - Achieve universal primary education
Goal 3 - Promote gender equality and empower women
Goal 4 - Reduce child mortality
Goal 5 - Improve maternal health
Goal 6 - Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases
Goal 7 - Ensure environmental sustainability
Goal 8 - Develop a global partnership for development
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Ecosystem Services and the MDGs
Goal 1 - Eradicate extreme poverty
and hunger
Goal 2 - Achieve universal primary
education
Goal 3 - Promote gender equality and
empower women
Goal 4 - Reduce child mortality
Goal 5 - Improve maternal health
Goal 6 - Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria,
and other diseases
Goal 7 - Ensure environmental
sustainability
Goal 8 - Develop a global partnership
for development
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Millennium Development Goal 1
Goal 1: Eradicate
extreme poverty
and hunger
Target 2 : Halve, between 1990
and 2015,
the proportions of
people who suffer from
hunger
Achieving this target has important
consequences for the drivers of biodiversity loss
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Increased food
production will mean a
larger ecological
footprint.
• 800 Million are hungry
• Deaths from
cardiovascular diseases 17 million
• 171 million suffer from
diabetes globally
• 300 million people clinically
obese worldwide
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Dietary trends can
produce health
problems
Conservation and
sustainable use of
biodiversity will reduce
the ecological footprint
from increased food
production and provide
access to diversity of
food stuffs
Contribution of Biodiversity
to nutrition and resilience
Genetic Diversity
• Ensures resilience
• Basis for nutritional
diversity
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Species Diversity
• Important for
nutritional diversity
• Biodiversity provides
range of foods
Ecosystem Diversity
• Important for sound
agricultural
management
• Maintains soil fertility
• Helps increase
agricultural
productivity
•
Biodiversity provides high variety of food: crops,
livestock, forestry, and fish are important food
source of human species. However, the number of
species have been domesticated and cultivated are
small if comparing with the number of species existing.
•
Food supply: 30,000 species are edible. Of these,
7,000 are cultivated or collected for food
•
Wild species and varieties can supply genes for
improving domesticated species by improving their yield,
disease resistance, tolerance and vigor; this can increase
the profit of farming.
•
Genetic traits from wild crop varieties introduced into
domestic agricultural crops (in USA): US$8 billion per
year
•
Total seed-sector activities worldwide: US$45 billion per
year
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Ecosystem Services
and Human Health
•
•
•
•
•
•
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Fresh water
Medicinal plants/ resources
Control of infectious disease
Food
Timber, fuel and fiber
Waste management
Millennium Development Goals 4, 5
and 6
Goal 4 - Reduce child mortality
Goal 5 - Improve maternal
health
Goal 6 - Combat HIV/AIDS,
malaria, and other
diseases
Biodiversity supports the ecosystem services
which enable these goals to be met
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The Importance of Biodiversity for
Medicine
•
60% of world population relies on plants for
primary healthcare
•
80% of population in developing countries
rely on traditional medicines
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•
25% of prescriptions in United States contain
plant extracts or active principles from plants
•
More than 50% of the top prescription drugs
in the U.S. are compounds derived from, or
are based on compounds derived from,
natural sources
•
A wide variety of plants, animals and fungi are
used as medicine. Wild plant species have
been used for medicinal purposes since before
the beginning of recorded history.
•
Source of medicine (health care): 20,000
species are used in traditional medicine for
about 2.5 billion people; 5,000 species are
potential source of commercial drugs
•
Over 60% of world population depends on
plant medicines for their primary health care.
For example, quinine from the cinchona tree
has been used to treat malaria, digitalis from
the foxglove plant treats chronic heart trouble,
and morphine from the poppy plant gives pain
relief.
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•
Global market for herbal drugs: US$47 billion
in 2000
•
Sales of prescription drugs containing
ingredients from wild plants (in USA): US$15
billion in 1990
•
According to the National Cancer Institute,
over 70 % of the promising anti-cancer drugs
come from plants in the tropical rainforests. It
is estimated that of the 250,000 known plant
species, only 5,000 have been researched for
possible medical applications. Ethno-pharmacy
is the branch of science that investigates
traditional medicines.
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• Animals may also play a role, in
particular in research. In traditional
remedies, animals are extenively
used as drugs. Many animals also
medicate themselves.
Zoopharmacognosy is the study of
how animals use plants, insects
and other inorganic materials in
self-medicatation.
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Drugs derived from plants and
microbes
•
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119 chemical compounds,
derived from 90 plant species
are important drugs currently
in use
– Quinine
– Artemisinin
– Morphine
– Paclitaxel (Taxol©)
– Salicin (Aspirin)
• Microbially derived agents are also important
– Penicillins and other β-lactam antibiotics
– Aminoglycosides
– Tetracyclines
– Anthracyclines
• There is no question that the
templates for most drugs are in the
natural world.
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Biodiversity and Control
of Infectious Diseases
•
Change to diversity of habitat elements,
such as degradation, deforestation may
change epidemiology
–
•
Yellow fever, malaria
Reduction of overall species diversity can
lead to an increase in vector-based disease
(dilution effect is reduced)
–
•
West Nile encephalitis, Lyme disease
Climate change may expand the range of
vector-based diseases
–
•
Malaria, dengue
Pollution, including nitrogen loading
–
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Eutrophication may lead to River blindness
•
Using control species is often more
environmentally friendly compared with using
pesticides. The control species can be used to
protect the crops against pests and weeds. The
economic loss due to the loss of crops/food can
be reduced with the use of the control species.
•
Also, the population of disease vectors (for
example, mosquitoes) and the invasive species
can be controlled; thus, the economic loss led
by the invasive species and vectors can be
reduced. Damages worldwide from invasive species
was estimated at more than US$ 1.4 trillion per year.
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Millennium Development Goal 8
Biodiversity and environmental sustainability
Benefits obtained from
regulation of ecosystem
processes:
> Climate
control
> Disease control
> Flood control
> Waste detoxification
and decomposition
> Drought moderation
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Services that maintain the
conditions for life on earth:
> Soil formation
> Nutrient cycling
> Pollination and
seed dispersal
Ecosystem Products and Services
Estimated Value (US Dollars)
Economic activity generated by the 350
million visitors to U.S. national parks, wildlife
refuges and other public lands through
expenditures on fishing, hiking, hunting,
whale watching and wildlife photography
More than 400,000 jobs and
28 billion per year
Commercial and sport fishing revenue lost
because of destruction of U.S. estuaries
between 1954 and 1978
Value of flood control services provided by
marsh-lands near the Charles River in
Boston, Massachusetts
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More than $200 million
$72,000 per acre of marshland
Why measuring biodiversity in monetary
terms?
>Many of the goods and services provided by
biodiversity and ecosystems are crucial, but not always
measurable in monetary terms.
>Many of these goods and services are not traded in
the market place and so do not have an obvious price
or commercial value.
>If unpriced values are not included in the decisionmaking process, the final decision may favor outcomes
which do have a commercial value.
>Hence decision makers may not have full awareness
of the consequences for biodiversity conservation.
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Despite these facts, biodiversity is lost at
unprecedented rate
Some 100 to 150 species become extinct everyday
 Some 20,000 to 100,000 species become extinct every
year (natural extinction rate 2-10 species/year)
One breed of livestock dies out every week
More than 31,000 plant animal species are threatened
with extinction
Some 75 % of the genetic diversity found in agricultural
crops have been lost over the last century
Of 6300 animal breeds, 1350 are endangered or
already extinct
Forests and ecosystems are being destroyed at the rate
of over 10 million hectares every year
If current destruction rate in forests and coral reefs is
maintained, 50% of plant and animal species will be
gone by the end of the 21st century
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• Current extinction rates are
as much as 1,000 times
background rates
• 20% of worlds coral reefs
were lost in last several
decades
• 35% of mangrove area has
been lost
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We don’t know what is lost: number of species
on Earth
Recent estimate: 7 to 20 million
Good working estimate: 13 to 14 million
Scientifically described species: 1.8 to 2.1 million
Less well-studied groups: bacteria, fungi, arthropods
and nematodes
Poorly known groups: species living in marine
ecosystems and beneath the ground
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Reasons for Concern
•
Decline in ecosystem services
–
•
Impact on the poorest
–
•
May prevent attaining the MDGs
Loss of resilience
–
•
Required for human-well-being
Can exacerbate shocks & produce
surprises
Loss of unique species & habitats
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Impact of Global Warming
•
It was estimated that one third of the earth’s
species could disappear by 2050 if the
current rate of global warming continues.
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Maintaining Biodiversity
•
Maintaining biodiversity requires more than
just protecting wildlife and their habitats in
nature conservation reserves. It is also about
the sustainable use and management of all
natural resources and safeguarding the lifesupport systems on earth.
•
Society needs mechanisms for determining the
appropriate trade-off between biodiversity
protection and the human activities that create
value for people but result in biodiversity loss.
•
Economics offers some techniques to help in
this decision-making process. However, the full
potential of these techniques is yet to be
realized.
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Economic Analysis of Biodiversity
•
Economic analysis of biodiversity
requires an understanding of the
connections between the choices people
make, the resultant changes and the
subsequent changes in the wellbeing of
people.
•
At the core of the interrelationships
between people and biodiversity is the
ecological system in which the state and
scale of biological resources are
intrinsically linked to biodiversity.
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Human/Biodiversity interrelationships
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•
This is particularly evident in a dynamic
analysis of the interrelationship through
the notion of resilience. This is because,
in general, the greater the biodiversity,
the greater is the resilience of the
ecological system. Hence, with greater
biodiversity, society has better
‘insurance’ against the impacts of a
future adverse event.
•
Valuation methods have mostly
concentrated on species and habitat
protection. There is little recognition of
the complex relationship between
biodiversity and the scale of the
biological resource
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•
Hence, the values reported are not
estimates of biodiversity per se, but rather
of the species/ ecosystem being studied.
Very few studies have targeted the value of
ecosystem resilience as the specific result
of biodiversity protection activities.
•
Unless the ecological system is understood,
the role of economics is very limited. For
instance, to use the production function
approach to assess the value of soil biota
we need to understand the links between
farm management practices, soil biota and
the productivity of the soil.
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When markets fail
Decisions about biodiversity management are
complicated by the fact that various types of market
failure are associated with natural resources and the
environment.
Market failures occur when markets do not reflect
the full social costs or benefits of a good. Factors
that cause market failures related to biodiversity
protection include:
•
many ecosystems provide services that are public
goods; they may be enjoyed by any number of
people without affecting other peoples’ enjoyment.
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•
many ecosystem services are affected
by externalities (the side effects of
human actions; for example, if a stream
is polluted by runoff from agricultural
land, the people downstream experience
a negative externality. Externalities can
also be positive, e.g. the crop pollination
services performed by wild bees).
•
property rights related to ecosystems
and their services are often not clearly
defined.
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•
An example of an externality is the cost
of salinity arising from vegetation
clearance. The repair bill for salinity and
water logging due to removal of the
vegetation that regulated groundwater
flow (another ecosystem service) is one
of the most expensive ones facing
Australia at the moment. Estimates of
the size of the repair bill vary from $20
- $65 billion over 10 years, depending
on what aspects of salinity are included.
If these externalities had been factored
into the original decisions to clear
vegetation, a costly repair bill may have
been avoided.
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• Proper ecosystem valuation can
help resource managers deal with
the effects of market failures by
measuring their costs to society in
terms of lost benefits. The costs to
society can then be imposed, in
various ways, on those who are
responsible, or can be used to
determine the viability of actions to
reduce or eliminate environmental
impacts.
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key strategies for making valuation studies
more relevant and timely for decision
makers
•
•
•
Greater policy application: Decision-makers
can increase their understanding of the range
of values that biodiversity offers and the
techniques used to estimate them through
greater exposure to the use of valuation
techniques
Better science: We need to improve our
scientific understanding of the impacts of
human activities on biodiversity.
Better communication: Improved general
awareness of what biodiversity and
biodiversity valuation can offer society.
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Role of developed countries
Take the lead in adopting positive policy
approaches towards sustainable consumption
and production.
Take a fresh look at their policies on foreign
aid, trade and debt relief.
Make available additional financial resources
and technologies essential for developing
countries to break the vicious cycle of poverty
and environmental degradation.
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Role of developing countries
Create conditions whereby stakeholders, in particular,
local communities, assume greater responsibility over
the management of biological resources and benefit
from their utilization.
Give serious consideration to the effects of misuse of
resources in defeating the purpose of well-intended
sustainable development policies.
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Thank you
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Whilst biodiversity value estimation has
struggled to achieve a higher policy
profile, the economic analysis of
delivering biodiversity values to society
has progressed rapidly in the last
decade. This has been achieved through
the development of policy tools that
provide incentives for people to provide
biodiversity values.
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•
The predominant mechanism for delivering
public goods – including biodiversity – has
been government provision. In the case of
biodiversity this was achieved through the
creation of a network of parks and nature
reserves. However, in recognition that such a
‘patchwork’ approach would not provide
functional biodiversity protection (resilience),
more policy emphasis has been put on
biodiversity protection on privately owned
land. Economists have provided assistance in
this endeavour by bringing to the fore a suite
of policy measures broadly known as ‘market
based instruments’.
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•
These measures involve the use of financial
incentives to promote biodiversity protection.
They include the payment of targeted
subsidies, the levying of taxes on biodiversity
destructive practices and the introduction of
trading and banking schemes in which property
rights to biodiversity are created and then
bought and sold amongst people who can
supply biodiversity (for example, land owners)
and those who want biodiversity (for example,
society, as represented by their government,
conservation clubs, and developers who want
to use biodiversity in their development
activities).
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•
•
The implication of market failure is that there is a
potential role for government in filling the gap left by
market forces. However, governments should only step
in if it can be demonstrated that the benefits of
intervention exceed the costs. In other words, the
actions of government must be justified with reference
to an improvement in human wellbeing. This is because
a net benefit from government action cannot be
presumed simply because of market failure. There is
always the prospect of ‘government failure’ arising
because of inadequacies in the bureaucratic/political
processes involved in designing and implementing such
action.
What this means is that without government
intervention to protect biodiversity, insufficient
protection can be expected.
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• Valuation techniques
• Market based techniques
• Revealed preference techniques
• Stated preference techniques
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Examples
Impacts of Alien Invasive Species
 The invasive sea lamprey collapsed lake trout and other native
great Lake fisheries.
 Introduction of the Nile perch to lake Victoria, as a prey for local
fishermen, ate up all other fish they used to catch.
 Invasive brown tree snakes have wiped out native forest birds,
bats and reptiles to extinction in Guam.
 Damages worldwide from invasive species was estimated at
more than US$ 1.4 trillion per year.
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Ecotourism
•
Biodiversity is a source of economical wealth
for many regions of the world, such as many
nature reserves, parks and forests, where
wildlife and plants are sources of beauty and
joy for many people.
•
Ecotourism, in particular, is a growing outdoor
recreational activity. In 1988, it is estimated
that 157-236 million people took part in
ecotourism. The majority of species have yet
to be evaluated for their current or future
economic importance
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