The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment Where we have been and where we are going

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1 12 September The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment Where we have been and where we are going Hal Mooney Presentation notes Assessments are a good way of establishing a bridge between science and the general public, and to make our work make a difference. Sometimes it s not sufficient to show it only to the peers. - A little personal history 1987 Coin of the term Biodiversity - at that time biodiversity and biodiversity option values (e.g. species with a possible interest to medical research) were being lost, there was an urgent need to do something. Some people questioned the value of biodiversity. The arguments used were not adequate to reach policy makers. There was a need to find new ways of communicating with them. - Article 2 of the CBD the fair and equitable sharing of the benefits mostly a North /South (hemisphere) issue (an important one) - Article 3. Principle the responsibility to ensure that activities within their jurisdiction or control do not cause damage to the environment of other states this component is often disregarded - Article 8. In-situ Conservation as far as possible and as appropriate... this statement is not concise, very contrasting with the Climate Convention demands - The reception of the plan by a representative of the SBSTTA of the CBD The GBA was not accepted by the non-scientific community (the quote is from the Brazil representative). It was extensively used by the scientific community, but not by the policy makers. It included two innovative chapters, one about biodiversity and one about ecosystem functioning

2 - The Climate Convention It presents more clear guidelines than the CBD ( The ultimate objective of this Convention is the stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations ) - Where did the momentum come 1979 (World Climate Conference) 1 st expressed concerns about human activity and impacts on climate (UNEP/WMO/ICSU Conference Villach) It was assumed that society had a real and serious problem in hands and that climate would change due to human action 1988 (WMO Executive Council decided on the establishment of the IPCC) Prof. Bolin had a central role in establishment of the dialog with the nonscientific community - UN General Assembly Takes Notice The IPCC is recognized and accepted (contrary to the GBA). - Some IPCC Characteristics The science however was isolated from governmental intervention this aspect was a relevant change, the assessment was funded by the governments but scientists were working without interference, the governments only participated in the discussion of the executive summary (line by line approval). The IPCC conclusions are not prescriptive; they present what may happen and not what should be done to achieve predetermined future conditions. - IPPC consecutive conclusions IPPC IV (2007) There is >90% certainty that temperature rise is the result of human greenhouse gases emissions - Conventions summary Neither IPCC or CBD have achieved their goals, but there is still space for action - My main concern at the moment Get science and policy together At the international level the policy and scientific communities are working together, but slowly. At the national level, the decision process is faster but tends to disregard the role of scientific knowledge in decision making (ex. there was a rush for biofuels in - 2 -

3 Europe, with the attribution of subsidies, without having a previous clarifying discussion). - Fisheries (note table fish fish directly consumed by humans) The conservation of marine ecosystems and resources is a major concern because they have been outside the realm of national policies and are not under any international agreements. - Then there is the extra-territorial problem the open ocean The tragedy of the commons some areas are not under any nation and there is not any legislation about their use Q? What about the Arctic partition? A Some nations are at advantage, because they have ships and advanced gears, and they are standing against a convention for the open ocean - Other problems open oceans cover 68.8% of earth s surface protected areas only constitute 0.3% of this area Oceans are not viewed and classified with as much detailed as terrestrial ecosystems, most of the marine scholars are still fisheries oriented - Then finally, the public doesn t get it. Without public pressure things move slowly The information does not spread from the scientific community to the broad public, without information people can not take part in the resolution of the problem. - Run-up to the MA; history of ecosystem service usage (and how it changed the way we look at biodiversity) 1983 paper by Paul Ehrlich and Mooney (Ehrlich, P. R., and H. A. Mooney Extinction, substitution, and ecosystem services. BioScience 33: note: the reference was not given, I assume it is this one) G. Daily s book - a turn point of how do we look at ecosystems and biodiversity Walt Reid and the WRI triggered the MA - Lessons from other assessments - 3 -

4 Legitimacy the GBA lacked political legitimacy and it was a political failure. Nevertheless it was an important document for the scientific community. - The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment It came 10 years after the GBA. It engaged representatives from both UN and nongovernmental organizations, from all the conventions and also multistakeholder board a way to achieve legitimacy and credibility It served other conventions besides the CBD, it went beyond the biodiversity scope (e.g. Desertification) - The MA timeline An assessment like the MA takes at least five years to accomplish. - The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment Brought together natural and social scientists soc. scientists were mostly economists Viewed ecosystems in terms of benefits a clear difference from other assessments Made a global as well as local assessments other important difference - MA Framework The Framework considered all the dynamics between indirect drivers and Human Wellbeing Interesting note on the multidisciplinary board the idea of having biodiversity underlying ecosystems services come from an economist of a huge multinational, this approach integrated the intrinsic value of biodiversity in the MA framework. - The Power of the MA framework Business people start looking at the environment in a different way, the MA provided a new tool for biodiversity conservation. - The MA Reports The synthesis reports were targeted to the different users (Convention Climate, Convention on Biological Diversity, Health users ) - The critics - 4 -

5 There was criticism about the anthropocentric approach - Selling out on nature protection of nature for nature s sake. this is a fundamental issue in conservation, ecosystem services should be seen as plus to conservation and not as a minus. - IPBES-Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services It results from the merge of two initiatives (IMoSEB International Mechanism of Scientific Expertise on Biodiversity and MA II) Generating the Knowledge until now we only have data from one assessment, the objective is to have regular assessments that provide long term environmental data - ICSU-UNESCO-UNU Initiative Regional foci Regional data will provide new power to science by increasing the comprehension of multi-scale human-ecosystem dynamics - Relationships of Ecosystem Services and Human Well-Being Quantification of trade-offs between ecosystem services this is still a poorly studied area, there are not enough and suitable data Discussion: Q: Why marine ecosystems get so little attention? A: A possible reason for the lack of information on marine ecosystems may be simply the fact that they are not inhabited by humans. There is also a historical bias, with terrestrial ecosystems being more studied. Q: Should the MAII drew more attention to marine ecosystems and counteract this bias? A: Yes, this problem will be address in the next assessment. Q: What are the academic links between the concept of sustainable development (80 s) and the concept of ecosystem services? A: There will be published an article which puts ecosystem services in context with sustainable development. Resources are being reduced and it is not sustainable to continue like this. We are leading the world in an unsustainable way. Now, the question is how to get to sustainability. Q: How to deal with the 10% uncertainty in the IPCC report? A: The 10% respects to probability and not to the opinion of the experts involved in the assessment. There was a significant increase in certainty in relation to former reports. Q: People from developing countries were less willing to accept the MA - 5 -

6 A: There was an effort to integrate the MA in the Millennium Development Goals. However it is difficult to achieve all the goals, if one only focuses in poverty reduction other goals will be missed. The challenge is to find integrated processes to achieve the MDG. Q: Internalizing the social costs in the commercial values of resources, such as water, will not conduct to social inequities? In particular in developing countries, were poor people have less freedom of choice and less power to react. A: People have rights and those rights have to be assured and respected. Q: Are there any opportunities to contribute to the MA? (in particular young scientists) A: The MA had a program for young scientists, which were engaged in the activities of one of the working groups. Hopefully the new generation of scientists will participate actively in the next assessment. Also, using the framework of the MA in new projects is a good way of providing information for the next assessment. Q: Why is so crucial to use peer reviewed literature in the reports? A: It is a way of achieving credibility and reach policy makers. Q: There will be an increased request for the valuation of ecosystem services. How will experts manage to provide that type of information? A: Valuation is a very complicated area of research, but one of the most growing areas in the present. There are different dimensions of valuation, besides the economic one. We will find new forms of making operational valuation. Q: What difference does the Ecosystem Services approach makes in the thinking of protected areas? A: (example of a published book) a protected area in the Amazon, where conservation measures were not followed by the local people that continued to use it. The area was then protected by force (military, fences ) leading to conflicts. People have to be considered in conservation, some areas need to be protected in some different ways, it is important to evaluate each case individually. Vânia Proença - 6 -