Det globale naturtab en alvorlig hindring for FN’s verdensmål

Der er en stor fare for, at FN’s verdensmål ikke vil blive indfriet, hvis ikke det globale tab af natur bliver bremset. 

Sådan lyder advarslen i forbindelse med de store vurderinger af biodiversitet, som netop er offentliggjort af IPBES, den globale videnskabelige platform for biodiversitet. 

“En af de vigtigste pointer i de fire regionale vurderinger af IPBES er, at mangelfuld prioritering af politikker og handling for at stoppe og vende tabet af biodiversitet og den fortsatte forringelse af naturens bidrag til mennesker, sætter mulighederne for alle regioner og stort set alle nationer for at indfri de globale udviklingsmål i fare,”, siger Anne Larigauderie, generalsekretær ved IPBES. 

Hun nævner santidigt, at FN’s verdensmål, den globale klimaaftale (Paris-aftalen) og Aichi-målene for biodiversitet aller er afhængige af en sund og varieret natur. 

“At handle for at beskytte og fremme biodiversitet er mindst lige så vigtigt for at indfri disse forpligtelser som kampen mod klimaforandringer”, fortsætter hun.

IPBES har offentliggjort vurderingerne denne weekend i Médelin, Colombia. Aichi-målene er de 20 mål, som nationerne er blevet enige om under FN for at bremse det globale tab af biodiversitet.  

Verdensmål i fare i alle regioner

I både Nord- og Syamerika vurderer vidensplatformen, at et fortsat tab af naturlig mangfoldighed kan underminere nogle af verdensmålene samt nogle af de internationale klimamål. 

I Afrika viser fremtidsscenarier, at årsagerne til tab af biodiversitet vil blive mere presserende. Det vil få negative konsekvenser for naturens bidrag til mennesker og menneskelig velvære. I tre ud af de fire scenarier, som IPBES har beregnet, vil Afrikas 2063 plan (Den Afrikanske Unions Agenda 2063), FN’s verdensmål og Aichi-målene ikke blive opnået. 

Mangelfuld affaldshåndtering samt forurening i luft, vand og land er store forhindringer for indfrielse af FN’s verdensmål og Aichi-målene i flere lande i Asien og Stillehavet. 

I Europa og Centralasien har der været noget fremgang med FN’s verdensmål og Aichi-målene. Det gælder i nvieauet af beskyttede områder samt hensyn til biodiversitet i regeringer og samfund. Det samlede pres på naturmangfoldigheden ser imidlertid ikke ud til at blive mindsket. 

Biodiversitet er ekstremt vigtigt, påpeger Anne Larigauderie: 

“Rigere og mere mangfoldige økosystemer er mere modstandsdygtige overfor forstyrrelser som ekstreme vejrfænomener og udbrud af sygdomme. De er vores “forsikring” mod uforudsete katastrofer og hvis de bliver anvendt bæredygtigt, tilbyder mange af de bedste løsninger til vores mest presserende udfordringer”. 

Her en række tal fra vurderingerne: 

The Americas

Trends / data

• 13%: the Americas’ share of world’s human population
• 40%: share of world ecosystems’ capacity to produce nature-based materials consumed by people, and to assimilate by-products from their consumption
• 65%: the proportion of nature’s contributions to people, across all units of analysis, in decline (with 21% declining strongly)
• >50%: share of the Americas’ population with a water security problem
• 61%: languages and associated cultures, in trouble or dying out
• >95%: North American tall grass prairie grasslands transformed into human-dominated landscapes since pre-European settlement
• 72% and 66% respectively: of tropical dry forest in Mesoamerica and the Caribbean have been transformed into human-dominated landscapes since pre-European settlement
• 88%: Atlantic tropical forest transformed into human-dominated landscapes since pre-European settlement
• 17%: Amazon forest transformed into human-dominated landscapes since pre-European settlement
• 50%: decrease in renewable freshwater available per person since the 1960s
• 200-300%: Increase in humanity’s ecological footprint in each subregion of the Americas since the 1960s
• 9.5% and 25%: Forest areas lost in South America and Mesoamerica respectively since the 1960s
• 0.4% and 43.4%: net gains in forest areas in North America and the Caribbean respectively since the 1960s
• 1.5 million: approximate number of Great Plains grassland hectares loss from 2014 to 2015
• 2.5 million: hectares under cultivation in Brazil’s northeast agricultural frontier in 2013, up from 1.2 million ha in 2003, with 74% of these new croplands taken from intact cerrado (tropical savanna) in that region
• 15-60%: North American drylands habitat lost between 2000 and 2009
• >50%: US wetlands lost since European settlement (up to 90% lost in agricultural regions)
• >50%: decline in coral reef cover by the 1970s; only 10% remained by 2003

Economic value of nature’s contributions to people

• $24.3 trillion: estimated value per year of terrestrial nature’s contributions to people in the Americas (equivalent to the region’s gross domestic product)
• $6.8, $5.3 and $3.6 trillion per year: nature’s contributions to people valued as ecosystem services in Brazil, USA and Canada respectively
• >$500 million: annual cost of managing the impacts of invasive alien zebra mussels on infrastructure for power, water supply and transportation in the Great Lakes

Projections

• 20%: expected regional population increase (to 1.2 billion) by 2050
• +/-100%: expected growth in region’s GDP by 2050, intensifying many drivers of biodiversity loss if ‘business as usual’ continues
• 40%: expected loss by 2050 of the region’s original biodiversity under a ‘business as usual’ scenario for climate change (with loss of 35-36% expected under the three “pathways to sustainability”

Africa

Trends / data

• +/- 500,000: km2 of land is degraded due to factors such as deforestation, unsustainable agriculture, overgrazing, uncontrolled mining activities, invasive alien species and climate change, leading to soil erosion, salinization, pollution, and loss of vegetation or soil fertility
• +/- 62%: rural population directly dependent on wild nature and its services for survival (the most of any continent)
• +/- 2 million: km2 of land designated as protected (including 6% of biodiversity-rich tropical evergreen broadleaf forests and 2.5% of Africa’s seas
• 25%: people having faced hunger and malnutrition (2011-2013) in Sub-Saharan Africa, the world’s most food-deficient region

Economic values of nature’s contributions to people

West Africa

• $4 billion: coastal fishery value added (per year)
• $40,000: water purification services (per km2, per year)
• $4,500: mangrove coastal protection services (per km2, per year)
• $2,800: coastal carbon sequestration services (average per km2, per year)

Central Africa

• $2 billion: coastal fishery value added (per year)
• $0.8 billion: inland fishery value added (per year)
• $14,000: forest carbon sequestration services (average per km2, per year)
• $3,500: mangrove coastal protection services (per km2, per year) 
• $3,000: timber value added (per km2, per year)

Southern Africa

• $0.5 billion: coastal fishery value added (per year)
• $0.3 billion: inland fishery value added (per year)
• $9,000: recreation value (per km2, per year)

North Africa

• $0.6 billion: inland fishery value added (per year)
• $0.5 billion: coastal fishery value added (per year)
• $300: coastal carbon sequestration services (average per km2, per year)
• $2,000: timber production (per km2, per year)

East Africa and adjacent islands

• $2.5 billion: coastal fishery value added (per year)
• $1.2 billion: inland fishery value added (per year)
• $16,000: food production (per km2, per year)
• $12,000: forest carbon sequestration services (average per km2, per year)
• $11,000: erosion control (average per km2, per year)
• $7,800: forest bioprospecting (per km2, per year)
• $5,000: mangrove coastal protection services (per km2, per year)
• $2,200: coastal carbon sequestration services (average per km2, per year)

Projections

• >50% of African bird and mammal species could be lost to climate change by 2100
• 20 – 30%: expected decline in productivity of lakes by 2100
• 2.5 billion: predicted population of Africa in 2050 (double the current figure)
• 54%: Africans expected to live in urban and peri-urban areas by 2030 (up from 39% in 2003)By the numbers

Asia-Pacific

Trends / data

• Zero: exploitable fish stocks in the region by 2048 if current fishing practices continue
• Up to 90%: percentage of corals expected to suffer severe degradation by 2050, even under conservative climate change scenarios
• 1%-2%: annual estimated coral loss even for the most managed reefs
• 4.5 billion: people that benefit from the region’s biodiversity and ecosystem services, including food, water, energy, and health security, as well as cultural and spiritual fulfilment
• 400 million: region’s share of people below the poverty line (out of 767 million worldwide) — defined as $1.90 per person per day, using 2011 purchasing power parity
• 7.6%: regions’ average annual economic growth (1990-2010) compared to 3.4% global average
• 2-3%: region’s annual urbanization rate (among the fastest in the world)  
• Nearly 200 million: people in the region that directly depend on the forest for their non-timber forest products, medicine, food, fuel as well as other subsistence needs
• $33.5 billion: estimated annual economic loss due to invasive alien species in South-East Asia
• 12.9%: reduction in forest cover in South-East Asia due largely to an increase in timber extraction, large-scale bio-fuel plantations and the expansion of intensive agriculture and shrimp farms (1990 to 2015)
• 22.9% and 5.8%: respective increase in forest cover in North-East Asia and South Asia (1990 to 2015), through policies and instruments such as joint participatory management, payment for ecosystem services and the restoration of degraded forests
• 37%: share of aquatic and semi-aquatic species in the region’s freshwater ecosystems threatened by, among others, climate change, overfishing, pollution, infrastructure development and invasive alien species
• 60%: grasslands degraded due to overgrazing by livestock, invasion by alien species, or conversion to agriculture, resulting in a rapid decline of native flora and fauna
• 8 out of 10: top most plastic-polluted rivers in the world are in Asia – accounting for up to 95% of global load of plastics in the oceans
• Nearly 25%: proportion of region’s endemic species that are threatened

Projections

• 24% and 29%: mammal and bird species likely to go extinct in lowland forests of Sundaland in South-East Asia in coming decades if forest loss continues at the present rate
• +/-45%: anticipated loss of habitats and species by 2050 if business continues as usualBy the numbers

Europe and Central Asia

Trends / data

• >50%: share of nature’s regulating and some non-material contributions to people that declined from 1960 to 2016
• 42%: terrestrial animal and plant species with known trends that have declined in population size the last decade
• 5.1 hectares: per capita ecological footprint in Western Europe (subregion’s biocapacity: 2.2 hectares, meaning Western Europeans depend on net imports of renewable natural resources and material contributions of nature to people)
• 3.6 hectares: per capita ecological footprint in Central Europe (biocapacity: 2.1 hectares)
• 4.8 hectares: per capita ecological footprint in Eastern Europe (biocapacity: 5.3 hectares)
• 3.4 hectares: per capita ecological footprint in Central Asia (biocapacity: 1.7 hectares)
• 15%: per capita decrease in water availability (since 1990)
• 25%: agricultural land in the EU affected by soil erosion (23% in Central Asia), which, combined with a decline in soil organic matter, might compromise food production
• 20%: increase in erosion control on arable land in Western and Central Europe
• 7%: of the assessments of EU marine species of conservation interest have shown favourable conservation status; 27% have shown unfavourable conservation status
• 9%: of the assessment of EU marine habitats of conservation interest have shown favourable conservation status; 66% have shown unfavourable conservation status
• 26.6%: estimated proportion of marine fish species (for which trend data exist) that have declining populations, due to unsustainable fishing, habitat degradation, invasive alien species, eutrophication and climate change
• 1.6%: estimated proportion of marine fish species (for which trend data exist) with increasing populations, due to improved conditions including better fishing management and decreased eutrophication
• 20%: diversity of arable crop species that have declined since 1950 in Western and Central Europe
• 73%: percentage of assessments of EU freshwater habitats of conservation interest indicating unfavourable conservation status 
• 51%: extent of decline of wetlands in Western and Central Europe, and western parts of Eastern Europe, since 1970
• 16 – 65%: threatened species of crabs (bivalves 23 – 49%; crayfish 24 – 47%; gastropods 33 – 68%; dragonflies, 9 – 44%) in Western and Central Europe, and western parts of Eastern Europe
• 71%: fish populations in decline in past decade
• 60%: amphibian populations in decline in past decade 
• 37%: freshwater fish species threatened with extinction (amphibians: 23%) in Western and Central Europe and western parts of Eastern Europe

Economic value of nature’s contributions to people

• $765 / hectare / year: estimated median value (mid-range) of value (2017) of nature’s habitat maintenance in the region
• $1,965: estimated median value (mid-range) of the economic value per hectare per year of nature’s regulation of freshwater and coastal water quality (2017)
• $1,117: estimated median value (mid-range) of the economic value per hectare per year of nature’s non-material contributions to people, including physical and psychological experiences linked to tourism and recreation (2017)
• $464 estimated median value (mid-range) of the economic value per hectare per year of nature’s regulation of climate