OECD World Forum "Measuring and Fostering the Progress of Societies"

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OECD World Forum "Measuring and Fostering the
Progress of Societies"
The state of ecosystems and progress of society
Odeh Al-Jayyousi, Regional Director, IUCN West
Asia, Central Asia and North Africa Regional
Office
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Outline

• The state of global ecosystems
• Learning from ecology
• Re-defining progress
• Progress of society and culture
• Conclusions

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The state of global eco-systems

• Between 1700 and 1980, 1.2 billion hectare of
  agricultural land was gained at the expense of a
  roughly equal amount of forest.
• Such conversion involves loss of species and
  biological diversity which in turn limits the
  provision of eco-system services.

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Key challenges

• The challenge is that economic approaches are
  faced with the question of what are the benefits
  of conservation and what are the economic value
  of ecosystem services and species.
• There is a critical need to explain why
  biodiversity needs to be conserved and what does
  this mean to the progress of society.

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Economics matters...

• The goal defined by economists for resource
  allocation is based on utility maximization and
  the pursuit of happiness.
• Issues related to environmental conservation are
  addressed by welfare economics which deals with
  human wellbeing and what underpins that
  wellbeing.

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Conceptual challenge

• One dimension to the problem of un-sustainability
  is the population growth and the un-sustainable
  resource use in the North.
• Besides, the emerging economies in China and
  India impose more pressures on natural resources
  worldwide in terms of timber and fuel.
• Hence, there is a need to re-frame and re-define
  the notion of sustainable development to
  adequately address progress of societies.

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• What did we learn from the Millennium Ecosystem
  Assessment ?

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Lesson 1

• The key message is that humans over the last
  50 years are putting such a strain on the
  planets ecosystems that their capacity to
  sustain future generations can no longer be taken
  for granted.

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Lesson 2

• About 60 percent of the ecosystem services that
  support life on Earth are being degraded or used
  unsustainably.

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Lesson 3

• The international community needs to make
  environmental conservation a top priority if it
  wants to meet the UNs Millennium Development
  Goals (MDGs).

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Lesson 4

• Any progress achieved in addressing the goals of
  poverty and hunger eradication, improved health,
  and environmental protection is unlikely to be
  sustained if most of the ecosystem services
  continue to be degraded.

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Lesson 5

• What is critical is that humans have sound
  understanding for the environment and how it
  works, so that they can make the necessary
  decisions to protect our natural capital.

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Ecology and culture

• The metaphor of society is like an eco-system
  not a machine.
• Lessons can be learned from ecology to inform
  and transform business and society

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ISSUE Human demand for ecosystem services is
quickly growing around the world
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ISSUE The capacity of many ecosystems to provide
certain services has been declining
Ecosystem Type
Key
Freshwater
Grasslands
Forest Systems
Coastal Systems
Condition of Ecosystem
Agro-ecosystem
Services
Excellent
Food-Fiber Production
Good
Fair
Water Quality
Poor
Bad
Water Quantity
Not Assessed
Biodiversity
Changing Capacity
Decreasing
Carbon Storage
Increasing
Mixed
Source Pilot Assessment of Global Ecosystems.
2000. WRI, IFPRI
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ISSUE

• Despite knowledge of the increasing demand and
  diminishing or endangered supply, science is not
  being effectively brought to bear on these
  challenges

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Science and policy

• Existing mechanisms for linking science and
  policy are highly sectoral whereas the major
  problems today are increasingly multisectoral.

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Data to Knowledge

• New data sources, methodologies and models are
  underutilized in many countries.

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Re-defining sustainable development

• Markets do not tell us the ecological truth
• What constitutes good life
• The consequences of changes in global economies
  (China and India)
• The role of biomimcry in greening business and
  society.

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Ecosystem Services provide benefits to people

• Regulating
• Benefits obtained from regulation of ecosystem
  processes
• climate regulation
• disease regulation
• flood regulation
• detoxification

Provisioning Goods produced or provided by
ecosystems food fresh water fuel wood
fiber biochemicals genetic resources
Cultural Non-material benefits obtained from
ecosystems spiritual recreational
aesthetic inspirational educational
communal symbolic
Supporting Services necessary for production of
other ecosystem services Soil formation
Nutrient cycling Primary production
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Global assessment integrates the effects of
multiple drivers on all ecosystems
Driver
Ecosystems
Response
Human Impact
Millennium Assessment
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Numbers talk...

• Malaria accounts for more than 10 percent of the
  disease burden in Africa. Had it been eliminated
  35 years ago, the continents gross domestic
  product would have been 100 billion larger
  today.

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Numbers talk...

• An intact wetland can be worth 6,000 per
  hectare whereas one cleared for intensive
  agriculture is worth only around 2,000 per
  hectare.
• A mangrove forests worth at least 1,000 per
  hectare versus about 200 per hectare when
  cleared for shrimp aquaculture.

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Relationships and Interactions of People and
Nature
connected
Global institutions
Technological fix
Development Fix
Varied Experiments
Fortress
disaggregated
responsive
proactive
Approach to cross-scale feedbacks
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Re-defining Progress

• There is a need to transform GDP to reflect
  ecological and social attributes.

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Re-defining Progress

• Genuine progress indicator (GPI) and happy
  planet index (HPI) were developed as a refined
  version of GDP to address other dimensions like
  the state of environment and other social and
  health aspects.

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Conclusions

• To co-create a sustainable future, we need to
  devise adequate means to value our natural
  capital and human resources.
• It is possible to do something about the
  ecological problem. This requires substantial
  changes in policy and practice and the
  conceptualization of a new paradigm for
  sustainable development.

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Conclusions

• Investing in environmental assets and equitable
  strategies are vital to achieve national goals
  for relief from poverty, hunger and disease.
• Reaching environmental goals requires progress
  in eradicating poverty.
• We need measures to ensure that markets tell us
  the ecological and social truth.

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• Thank You