UNEP calls for restoration of ecosystem
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Restoring lost and damaged ecosystems - from forests and freshwaters to mangroves and wetlands - can trigger multi-million dollar returns, generate jobs and combat poverty, according to a new report launched in Nairobi by UNEP.
The report, entitled Dead Planet, Living Planet: Biodiversity and Ecosystem Restoration for Sustainable Development, underlines that far from being a tax on growth and development, many environmental investments in degraded, nature-based assets can generate substantial and multiple returns.
"The ecological infrastructure of the planet is generating services to humanity worth by some estimates over 70 trillion US dollars a year, perhaps substantially more," Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary General and UNEP Executive Director told journalists during the launch of the report in Nairobi. "In the past these services have been invisible or near invisible in national and international accounts. This should and must change".
Launched ahead of World Environment Day (WED), the report draws on thousands of ecosystem restoration projects world-wide and showcases over 30 initiatives that are transforming the lives of communities and countries across the globe.
These include restoring water flows to rivers and lakes, improved soil stability and fertility vital for agriculture and combating climate change by sequestrating and storing carbon from the atmosphere.
The report underlines that maintaining and managing intact ecosystems must be the key priority. But given that more than 60 per cent of them - ranging from marshes and coral reefs to tropical forests and soils - are already degraded, restoration must now be an equal priority.
The report says repairing and rehabilitating ecosystems also generates jobs in a world where currently 1.3 billion are unemployed or underemployed while supporting international goals to substantially reduce the rate of loss of biodiversity - a key theme of 2010.
"Restoration pays off: Wetlands and forests can be up to 22 times more effective than investing in water treatment plants," says Christian Nellemann of UNEP's GRID-Arendal in Norway, who headed up the Rapid Response Report.
"Do it right. Back it up with long term management and, where needed, ensure laws are enforced. Ensure law enforcement. And you will succeed with broad public support and generate immediate and long term returns."
The report cites evidence that well-planned, science-based, community supported programmes can recover 25-44 per cent of the original services alongside the animals, plants and other biodiversity of the former intact system.
This is highlighted by a study on restoring degraded grasslands and lands around river systems in South Africa's Drakensberg Mountains.
It estimates that the project will bring back winter river flows to vulnerable communities amounting to close to 4 million cubic metres of water, cut sediment losses and store carbon.
The report however cites cases were often well-intentioned restorations have back-fired underlining that such projects should be carried out with care and planning.
The report cites the introduction into European waters of North American signal crayfish after over harvesting had reduced catches of native species to in some cases 10 per cent of the original catch.
Unfortunately the imports, initially into Swedish waters, carried a crayfish plague that has spread to native populations in an estimated 21 countries-some countries are trying to establish ' ark-sites' or secure sites to save the remaining indigenous populations.
"This report is aimed at bringing two fundamental messages to governments, communities and citizens on World Environment Day and in 2010 - the UN's International Year of Biodiversity," said Steiner.
"Namely that mismanagement of natural and nature-based assets is under cutting development on a scale that dwarfs the recent economic crisis."
The UNEP chief said well-planned investments and re-investments in the restoration of the vast, natural and nature-based utilities not only has a high rate of return but will be central, if not fundamental, to sustainability in a world of rising aspirations, populations, incomes and demands on the Earth's natural resources.
He said the theme of ecosystem restoration underpins the Projeto Agua Limpa or Clean Water Project co-launched by UNEP Goodwill Ambassador Gisele Bündchen and her father in 2008 in her hometown of Horizontina.
The project is aimed at restoring the health of water supplies alongside a boost to biodiversity by restoring forests and rehabilitating river banks and riverside vegetation alongside river basins.
"UNEP's report on ecosystem restoration spotlights the enormous opportunities for communities to invest in their future development," Bundchen said.
"Indeed restoring degraded environments is among the best gifts we can give and hand on to current and future generations-we need to bring to the attention of everyone the central link between forests, wetlands and other natural systems and our survival and prosperity in this extraordinary world," she added.
The report makes a series of recommendations including urging overseas development agencies; international finance agencies and other funders such as regional development banks to factor ecosystem restoration and long term management assistance into development support; food security initiatives; job creation and poverty alleviation funding.
It also recommends that one per cent of GDP should be set aside annually for conservation, management and restoration of the environment and natural resources, with the precise amount linked to national circumstances.
"That ecosystem restoration is guided by experiences learnt to date to avoid unintended consequences such as the introduction of alien invasive species and pests. That priority is initially given to biodiversity and ecosystem 'hotspots'," the report recommends.
Through The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB), hosted by UNEP, and a myriad of other recent reports and initiative, the value of the Earth's natural assets and their role in development are now being glimpsed.
It is estimated that ecosystems deliver essential services worth between 21 trillion dollars and up to 72 trillion dollars a year - comparable to World Gross National Income in 2008 of 58 trillion dollars.
Wetlands, half of which have been drained over the past century often for agriculture, provide annual services of near 7 trillion dollars.
Forested wetlands treat more wastewater per unit of energy and have up to 22 fold higher cost-benefit ratios than traditional sand filtration in treatment plants.
Coastal wetlands in the United States, which among other services provide storm protection, have been valued at 23 billion dollars annually.
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