The damage to Earth’s resources by humans is taking place at a very fast rate, the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) Synthesis Report said. This damage can lead to shifts in regional climate, the emergence of new diseases, collapse of fisheries, sudden changes in water quality, and creation of ‘dead zones’ along coasts, said the report, which took into account data by 1300 experts from 95 countries.
In the past 50 years, increase in the population of humans has exhausted two thirds of the ecological systems that support life. “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 on which humanity relies continue to be degraded,” said the study. It added that the continuous degradation of ecosystem is an obstacle to the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals.
"In all the four plausible futures explored by the scientists, they project progress in eliminating hunger, but at far slower rates than needed to halve number of people suffering from hunger by 2015," the report said.
Asserting that more land was converted for agriculture since 1945 than in 18th and 19th centuries put together, the report said, “Humans have changed ecosystems more rapidly and extensively in the last 50 years than in any other period. This was done largely to meet rapidly growing demands for food, fresh water, timber, fiber and fuel.” Due to the use of synthetic nitrogen fertilizers, around 10 to 30 per cent of animal species are now facing the threat of extinction.
The study found that only four ecosystem services – crop, livestock and aquaculture production, and carbon sequestration for regulating global climate– have improved in the last five decades.
Reversing this degradation, while meeting burgeoning demands, needs large-scale policy and institutional changes, the report said, giving options that might conserve the ecosystem by reducing negative effects.
"The overriding conclusion of this assessment is that it lies within the power of human societies to ease the strains we are putting on the nature services of the planet, while continuing to use them to bring better living standards to all," said MA’s board of directors. It, however, added that ‘radical changes’ are required in the way nature is treated. "The warning signs are there for all of us to see. The future now lies in our hands," the report said.
Meanwhile, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said the report "shows how human activities are causing environmental damage on a massive scale throughout the world, and how biodiversity, the very basis for life on Earth, is declining at an alarming rate."
