Caring for the Earth

At the turn of this century, at a United Nations Summit, called the Millennium Summit, representatives of world leaders from 189 countries made conservation of nature a globally important issue, by integrating it into one of eight Millennium Development Goals targeted for achievement in 2015.

The simple answer is that the benefits we amass from the Earth are enormous. Nature gives us goods, such as food, wood, medicines, fuel and fuelwood, fibre and non-timber forest products. The environment, therefore, forms the basis for many industries: agriculture, livestock, fisheries, lumber, pharmaceuticals. It also forms the basis for a myriad livelihoods.

Equally importantly, nature provides us with many invaluable services, such as climate regulation, balancing gases in the atmosphere, flood control, prevention of river siltation, stabilisation of river banks, soil formation, prevention of erosion, nitrogen fixation, acquisition, storage, processing and release of nutrients, degradation of wastes; and pollination of flowers.

In addition to these almost immeasurable economic and ecological values, the environment also provides indefinable cultural, aesthetic, inspirational and educational benefits. How many of us have felt what Browning so beautifully articulated:
‘The lark’s on the wing The snail’s on the thorn
God’s in His heaven
All’s right with the world.

But all is not right with the world.
Despite these obvious direct and indirect benefits that we humans accrue from the world, our actions are undervaluing it dangerously and threatening it seriously. At the Millennium Summit in 2000, the UN Secretary General called for the first-ever international scientific assessment of the health of the world’s ecosystems, the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA). Two thousand experts from 95 countries worked on this assessment and their results, released five years later, were frightening. Of 24 ecosystems assessed, 60% are being degraded; the goods and services to humans from those ecosystems have also been damaged. This damage to services could worsen significantly in the first half of this century. In the last 50 years of the 20th century, humans had changed the face of the earth more than in any other period in human history. About 30% of agricultural land had been degraded. The degradation of the earth and the services it provides holds severe threats to humans, including collapse of various industries and livelihoods; it is also worsening living conditions for the world’s poor.

Although the environment provides us with valuable goods and services, there are now repeated, empirical data that humans are both undervaluing the Earth world and overusing it.

The MEA identified many drivers of natural resource loss, and the primary culprits of this loss were: Overexploitation, Invasive alien species, Habitat destruction and degradation and Climate change.

Overexploitation for food

From the beginning of time, humans have relied on natural resources for food. However, an ever-increasing human population, unsustainably extracting more and more resources, is putting an enormous pressure on many species on earth.

Seventy percent of the world’s oceans are being over-fished, and there are 3.5 million shipping fleets in the oceans, fishing in the remaining 30%. The Atlantic Cod fishery of Newfoundland, in existence from 1850, collapsed due to overexploitation during the 1960s and 70s.

Through the ages, plants and animals have been used for medicinal purposes. It is currently estimated that about 72,000 species of plants are used medicinally worldwide. Several species of seahorses are threatened by overexploitation for the medicinal trade.

It is reported that 77 countries are now involved in the trade of a conservative estimate of as much as 54 tonnes of seahorses per annum, used to treat a variety of ailments from sexual dysfunctions to respiratory diseases.

Although we have, for thousands of years, domesticated animals as pets, the global pet trade in wild animals is reported to be second only to drug trafficking and arms dealing. Birds and reptiles are the most favoured exotic pets and in the last decade, an average 1.5 million live birds and 650,000 live reptiles were traded annually. Brightly coloured parrots such as the Blue-throated Macaw are critically endangered because of the pet trade.

A shocking investigation by the International Fund for Animal Welfare last year revealed that the 20th century’s revolutionary communication tool - the Internet - is being used to trade endangered animals such as tigers and gorillas. During a one-week period in January 2005, this organisation reported that 9,000 species (mostly endangered) and their products were offered for sale online. This new trade may be the last nail on the coffin for these species.

Overexploitation for ornamental purposes (fish, fur, orchid and trinket trade):

Every year, 500 – 600 million fish are traded worldwide as ornamentals. Sri Lanka’s endemic Black Ruby Barb (Punctius nigrofasciatus) is one of them.

Despite international laws, furs are still smuggled to make fur coats. (During the last decade, an average of 150,000 furs per year was traded). Beautiful snow leopards (found in the mountainous regions of Central Asia) are endangered because of the fur trade.

It is reported that, globally, five million USD are used in the illegal trade of orchids and three million live turtles are traded for their shells.

Overexploitation for other purposes

In the past, whales were hunted for blubber, which was used for making candles, cosmetics, engine oil and also for whalebone, which was used for making women’s underwear. Except for Japan and Norway, and recently, Iceland, whaling is no longer commercial, but the damage has been done: less than 1000 Great Blue Whales - the largest animal that has ever lived - remain in all the world’s oceans.

Invasive alien species

Very few people know what Invasive Alien Species (IAS) are, much less that they are the second greatest threat to natural ecosystems. Invasive Alien Species are introduced species that do not stay confined to the area into which they were introduced, compete vigorously with native species, become established in natural ecosystems, threaten native species and have the potential of eradicating them.

The harsh reality of the effects of IAS is not only in the ecological mayhem that they cause, but also the enormous economic tolls that they extract. In the United States alone, the annual damage from IAS to the agriculture, forestry and fisheries industies among other sectors, was 137 billion USD.

The Water Hyacinth (commonly known in Sri Lanka as Japun Jabara) – is an aquatic plant that is now considered one of the world’s worst aquatic weeds. Because of its beautiful purple flowers, it was introduced as an ornamental but is now a serious invasive in over 50 countries.

Habitat loss and degradation

Many natural ecosystems are being clear-felled for building houses, factories and other infrastructure such as highways and roads. Tropical rain forests are lost at the rate of one hectare per second (equivalent to two U.S. football fields). Up to 80% of original mangrove ecosystems and 50% of the world’s wetlands are already degraded and lost.

With this loss of ecosystems, there is a concurrent loss of vital services they provide such as climate regulation, flood control etc.

Accumulation of solid waste:

In natural ecosystems, a suite of detritivores (‘dirt eaters’), decomposing bacteria and fungi degrade animal and plant wastes and other organic matter and release them into the soil as nutrients. Humans, however, produce vast mounds of mostly synthetic waste, which is not degradable in this way.

Thus, the waste that humans produce is accumulating globally at an alarming rate. Solid waste attracts disease carriers such as rats and flies and therefore spreads disease. It washes into waterways, carrying disease, clogging pathways and contributing to floods and damaging aquatic ecosystems. Chemicals in solid waste leach contaminate groundwater and large quantities of methane - a greenhouse gas - is produced.

Only 2.5% of the world’s water is freshwater, and of that only 1/3rd is available for human consumption and therefore, 430 million people live in countries facing water scarcities. Water flowing into the Dead Sea from the Jordan River is now less than 1/10th of the quantity it used to be because five countries are tapping into this river for fresh water.