Millennium Ecosystem Assessment: Overview of Findings.

Millennium Ecosystem Assessment: Overview of Findings

What is the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment?

Largest assessment ever undertaken of the health of ecosystems· Prepared by 1360 experts from 95

countries; extensive peer review· Consensus of the world’s scientists

Designed to meet needs of decision-makers among government, business, civil society· Information requested through 4

international conventions

MA Timeline

UN Launch

Launch and design

2001 2002 2003 2004 2005

Review process

Board approval

Release of Assessment

Reports

Release of Conceptual

Framework report

Core assessment work

Millennium Assessment (Pages end

to end)Eiffel Tower

Feet

2000

1000

RegulatingBenefits obtained from regulation of

ecosystem processes

CulturalNon-material benefits from ecosystems

ProvisioningGoods produced or

provided by ecosystems

What was unique?

Ecosystem services

Photo credits (left to right, top to bottom): Purdue University, WomenAid.org, LSUP, NASA, unknown, CEH Wallingford, unknown, W. Reid, Staffan Widstrand

Provisioning Services

Food Crops Livestock Capture Fisheries Aquaculture Wild Foods

Fiber Timber Cotton, hemp, silk Wood Fuel

Genetic resources

Biochemicals

Freshwater

Goods produced or provided by ecosystems

Photo credit (top): Tran Thi Hoa (World Bank),

Regulating Services

Air Quality Regulation

Climate Regulation Global (CO2 sequestration)

Regional and local

Erosion regulation

Water purification

Disease regulation

Pest regulation

Pollination

Natural Hazard regulation

Benefits obtained from regulation of ecosystem processes

Cultural Services

Spiritual and Religious Values

Knowledge Systems

Educational values

Inspiration

Aesthetic Values

Social Relations

Sense of Place

Recreation and Ecotourism

Non-material benefits obtained from ecosystems

Photo credits ( top to bottom): W. Reid, Mary Frost, Staffan Widstrand, unknown.

Local Conceptual Framework

Cabecar view of ecosystems

Earth is a circle surrounded by sea. There is a balance between upper and lower worlds

Habitat as a conic house

Special areas and places protected by guardians that regulate access and use of resources

Each living entity is a seed that deserves respect. Human beings are maize seeds

Cabecar view of ecosystems

MA view of ecosystems

Human Wellbeing and

Poverty Reduction

Indirect DriversOf Change

Direct DriversOf Change

Life on Earth:Biodiversity

Ecosystem Services

Bridging Knowledge Systems?

Core Questions

1. What is the rate and scale of ecosystem change?

2. What are the consequences of ecosystem change for the services provided by ecosystems and for human-well being?

3. How might ecosystems and their services change over the next 50 years?

4. What options exist to conserve ecosystems and enhance their contributions to human well-being?

Main Finding

Humans have radically altered ecosystems in last 50 years.

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

500 600 700 800 900 1000 1100 1200 1300 1400 1500 1600 1700 1800 1900 2000 2100

Year

1 billion in 1800

4 billion in 1975

2 billion in 1920

6.5 billion in 2005

World Population (billions)

Source: UN Population Division 2004; Lee, 2003; Population Reference Bureau

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

500 700 900 1100 1300 1500 1700 1900 2100

Year

$1 trillion in 1900

$10 trillion in 1967

$52 trillion in 2003

World GDP (trillion 1990 dollars)

Source: DeLong 1998

Temperate Grasslands & Woodlands

Temperate Broadleaf Forest

Tropical Dry Forest

Tropical Grasslands

Tropical Coniferous Forest

Mediterranean Forests

Tropical Moist Forest

0 50 100

Percent of habitat (biome) remaining

Habitat Loss to 1990

Source: Millennium Ecosystem Assessment

20% of the world’s coral reefs were lost and more than 20% degraded

35% of mangrove area has been lost in the last several decades

Amount of water in reservoirs quadrupled since 1960

Scale of Change

0

50

100

150

200

250

300

1875 1925 1975 2025

Fossil Fuels

Agroecosystems

Fertilizer

Total Human Additions

Natural Sources

Teragrams of Nitrogen per Year


Percent Increase in Nitrogen Flows in Rivers


Gulf of Mexico Dead Zone

Source: NOAA

280

300

320

340

360

380

400

1954 1969 1983 1998 2012

CO2 Concentration (ppm)

Source: Keeling and Whorf, 2005.

-0.4

-0.2

0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1

1860 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000

Global Surface Temperature (oC)Relative to 1890-1900 mean

Source: Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research

The Balance Sheet

CropsLivestockAquacultureCarbon sequestration

Capture fisheriesWild foodsWood fuelGenetic resourcesBiochemicalsFresh WaterAir quality regulationRegional & local climate

regulationErosion regulationWater purificationPest regulationPollinationNatural Hazard

regulationSpiritual & religious Aesthetic values

TimberFiberWater regulationDisease regulationRecreation & ecotourism

Enhanced Degraded Mixed

Bottom Line: 60% of Ecosystem Services are Degraded

Change in Species Diversity

0.1

1

10

100

1000

10000

Fossil Recent Future

Number per Thousand Species

Extinctions(per thousand years)

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

140

1790-1819 1820-1849 1850-1879 1880-1909 1910-1939 1940-1969 1970-19991790 1900 2000

Number of Species

Homogenization(e.g. growth in marine species

introductions)

North America

Europe100 to 1000-fold increase


Main Findings

1. Humans have radically altered ecosystems in last 50 years.

2. Changes have brought gains but at growing costs that threaten achievement of development goals. Degradation of many ecosystem

services Increased risk of abrupt changes in

ecosystems Growing harm to poor people







The Balance Sheet

Crops Status: Enhanced

0

50

100

150

200

250

300

1961 1971 1981 1991 2001

Ind

ex

(1

96

1 =

10

0)

Food Production Food Production per Capita Food Price


Capture Fisheries Status: Degraded

Photo Credit (left): UNEP

Source: FAO 2000

Status of Marine Fish Stocks

Underexploited, 4%

Moderately Exploited, 21%

Fully Exploited, 47%

Overexploited, 28%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

Freshwater Status: Degraded

15–35% of Irrigation Withdrawals Unsustainable (low to medium certainty)

Natural Hazard Regulation Status: Degraded

0

50

100

150

200

250

300

350

1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s

Flood events per decade

Asia Americas Africa Europe


0

100

200

300

400

500

600

Sources Sinks

Land Use

Fossil FuelAtmosphere

Oceans

Terrestrial

Climate Regulation (Global) Status: Enhanced

Peta grams carbon

Sources and Sinks of Carbon over Past Two Centuries


Terrestrial ecosystems have been net carbon sink since mid-1990s, but previously were net carbon source

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

Sources Sinks

Land Use

Fossil FuelAtmosphere

Oceans

Terrestrial

Gigatons carbon per year

Sources and Sinks of Carbon in 1990s


Climate Regulation (Global) Status: Enhanced

Increased likelihood of abrupt changes(established but incomplete evidence)

• Fisheries collapse • Eutrophication• Coral reef regime shifts• Disease emergence • Species introductions• Regional climate change

Atlantic Cod off Newfoundland

Economic and health costs of degradation can be substantial

Cost of damage of UK agriculture to other ecosystem services

Cost of collapse of the cod fishery in Canada

Introduction of Zebra mussels into aquatic ecosystems in the US

$2.6 billion (10% of farm receipts)

$2 billion in income support and retraining; loss of tens of thousands of jobs

$100 million annual costs to power industry

Cultural Cultural

Regulating Regulating

Provisioning Provisioning

Provisioning services are being enhanced at the cost of regulating & cultural services

Provisioning Provisioning

Regulating Regulating

Cultural Cultural







Trade-offs Among Services

Mangrove ecosystem

shrimpshrimp

housinghousing

cropscrops

Mangrove Services:

• nursery and adult fishery habitat

• fuelwood & timber

• carbon sequestration

• traps sediment• detoxifies

pollutants• protection from

erosion & disaster

Trade-offs among ecosystem services

Croatia

0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140

Timber andfuelwood

Grazing

NTFPs

Recreation andhunting

Watershedprotection

Carbonsequestration

Passive usevalues

Italy

0 20 40 60 80 100 120

Timber andfuelwood

Grazing

NTFPs

Recreation andhunting

Watershedprotection

Carbonsequestration

Passive usevalues

Economic Value ($ per hectare)Economic Value ($ per hectare)

Forests in Italy Forests in Croatia


Economic value of non-marketed services can be high

Photo: W. Reid

Fiber

Food

Spiritual & religious

Freshwater

Genetic Resources

Climate regulation

Water purification

Disease regulation

Flood/Fire regulation

Recreation & tourism

Aesthetic

Economic Value ($)

Economic Valuation

Difficult or impossible

Easy

Private Benefit Capture

Difficult

Easy

?

?

?

?

?

?

?

?

?

?

?

Many services are public goods

Impact on Poor and Marginalized People

Poor people are most dependent on ecosystem services and most vulnerable to degradation of the services

Photo credit: Uittapron Juntawonsup/UNEP

• Per capita food production declining in sub-Saharan Africa• Number of undernourished people worldwide increasing• Water scarcity affects 1 in every 3 people worldwide• 1.1 billion people lack access to improved water supply• Half the developing country urban population suffers from diseases

associated with water and sanitation• Malaria responsible for 11% of the burden of disease in Africa

Impact on Poor and Marginalized People

Critical concern – drylands

• 40% of land surface and more than 2 billion inhabitants

• Lowest levels of human well-being

• 10-20% of drylands degraded

• Only 8% of renewable water supply

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

16

18

20

Drylands Mountain Coastal Cultivated Forests Island

Per

cen

t p

op

ula

tio

n g

row

th (

1990

-200

0)

0

0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4

0.5

0.6

0.7

0.8

Net

pri

mar

y p

rod

uct

ivit

y (k

g/s

q m

/yr)

%pop growth NPP

Dryland Systems: Highest population growth in 1990’s


Main Findings


2. Changes have brought gains but at growing costs that threaten achievement of development goals.

3. Degradation of ecosystems could grow worse but can be reversed.

Order from Strength

Adapting Mosaic

Global Orchestration

TechnoGarden

Globalization Regionalization

World DevelopmentE

nvi

ron

men

tal

Man

agem

ent

Pro

activ

e

R

eact

ive

MA Scenarios

Scenario Storylines

Global Orchestration Globally connected society that focuses on global trade and economic liberalization and takes a reactive approach to ecosystem problems but that also takes strong steps to reduce poverty and inequality and to invest in public goods such as infrastructure and education.

Order from Strength Regionalized and fragmented world, concerned with security and protection, emphasizing primarily regional markets, paying little attention to public goods, and taking a reactive approach to ecosystem problems.

Scenario Storylines

Adapting Mosaic Regional watershed-scale ecosystems are the focus of political and economic activity. Local institutions are strengthened and local ecosystem management strategies are common; societies develop a strongly proactive approach to the management of ecosystems.

TechnoGarden Globally connected world relying strongly on environmentally sound technology, using highly managed, often engineered, ecosystems to deliver ecosystem services, and taking a proactive approach to the management of ecosystems in an effort to avoid problems.

Trends in Drivers


0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

45

1970 1990 2010 2030 2050

Million sq. km

Developing regions

Industrialized regions

Change in Agricultural Land Under MA Scenarios


Temperate Broadleaf Forest

Tropical Dry Forest

Tropical Grasslands

Tropical Coniferous Forest

Mediterranean Forests

Tropical Moist Forest

0 50 100

Percent of habitat (biome) remaining

Habitat Loss to 1990Habitat Loss to 2050 under MA Scenarios


Temperate Grasslands & Woodlands

0

50

100

150

200

250

300

1875 1925 1975 2025

Fossil Fuels

Agroecosystems

Fertilizer

Total Human Additions

Natural Sources

Teragrams of Nitrogen per Year


-1.5

-1

-0.5

0

0.5

1

1.5

2

2.5

3

3.5

4

4.5

5

5.5

6

1000 1100 1200 1300 1400 1500 1600 1700 1800 1900 2000 2100

Temperature Change (oC) from 1990

A: Observations, Northern Hemisphere, Proxy data

B: Global Instrumental Observations

C: IPCC 2001 Scenario Projections (SRES)

A B C

1.5 – 5.7 oC

Source: IPCC 2001

MA Scenarios

100

50

0

Percent Change by 2050

Food Demand

70-85%

Water Withdrawal

30-85%

Species Loss

10-15% (low certainty)

Global Orchestration

Lower population Lower habitat loss Higher economic growth Higher GHG emissions

Global, Reactive environmental policies

Population Scenarios

TechnoGarden

Best GHG Best Nitrogen Best Water Slower economic growth than Global Orchestration Reliability of ecosystem services decreased, risks

increased New problems emerge from technologies

Global, Proactive environmental policies

Adapting Mosaic

Best GHG Best Nitrogen Best Water Slower economic growth than Global Orchestration Reliability of ecosystem services decreased, risks

increased New problems emerge from technologies

Regionalized, Proactive environmental policies

Order from Strength

Worst across the board (except GHG/Climate due to slower economic growth)

Slower economic growth than Global Orchestration

Regionalized, Reactive environmental policies

Some services improved in three of the four MA scenarios

Examples: Freshwater Water regulation Erosion control Water purification Storm protection Aesthetic values Recreation

Degradation of many services can be reversed by 2050

In three of the four MA scenarios, many currently degraded ecosystem services were enhanced by 2050

But the actions needed are significant and not underway

Investments in public goods (e.g., education) and poverty reduction

Elimination of trade barriers and distorting subsidies

Use of active adaptive management Investment in education Investment in new technologies Payments for ecosystem services

Main Findings


2. Changes have brought gains but at growing costs that threaten achievement of development goals.

3. Degradation of ecosystems could grow worse but can be reversed.

4. Workable solutions will require significant changes in policy

Promising Options:Change the economic incentivesProblem can’t be solved so long as ecosystem services are treated as free and limitless• Measure ecosystem service values• Incorporate into cost-benefit

analyses

Agricultural and fisheries production subsidies cause ecosystem service degradation.

Annual subsidy to agricultural in industrialized countries: $324 billion annually (1/3 of global value)

Annual subsidy to fisheries in industrialized countries $6.2 billion (20% of global value)

Opportunity to shift subsidies to payments for ecosystem services

Costa Rica Payments for Ecosystem Services

Downstream Users benefit from protection of upstream ecosystem services

Pay upstream landowners to maintain forest cover on their land

$

Program established 1997

By 2001: 280,000 ha enrolled at cost of $30 million

Typical payments: $35 to $45 per hectare

Payments for Ecosystem Services

Costa Rica Land owners are paid for new plantations, sustainable

logging, and forest conservation. Funded in part by tax on energy use.

Mexico Pays for forest conservation in critical watersheds using

revenue from water charges.Colombia

Water users in the Cauca Valley pay for conservation in their watersheds.

Ecuador Quito funds from the water utility and the electric power

company pay for conservation in the city watershed

Promising Options:Change the economic incentives

Market mechanisms may sometimes be useful (e.g. potential to reduce nutrient releases and carbon emissions)

Promising Options:Change the economic incentives

Rapid growth of Carbon market

Ecosystem Marketplace: Online information on ecosystem service markets and payments for services

Development planning and national development strategies could benefit from the incorporation of ecosystem services MDG-Based Poverty Reduction

Strategies Capacity building for national

planning and assessments

Promising Options:Policy, Planning & Management

Southern Africa MA SynthesisSource: Millennium Ecosystem Assessment - SAfMA

Promising Options:Technologies

Sustainable Agricultural Intensification

Energy Technologies Significant harm if global

temperature increases 2o C0

1

2

3

4

5

1961 Crop Area 2004 Crop Area 2004 Area at1961 Yield

Total SuitableLand

Billion Hectares

Growth in Cropland 1961 to 2004

Photo credit: Jorgen Schytte/Peter Arnold, Inc.

Promising Options:Individual Behavior

Public education

Information that can influence choices Certification systems Value of ecosystem

services

Photo credit: W. Reid

Need for deliberative decision-making processes

• Decision-making could be improved with more information concerning the economic values of different ecosystem services (both marketed and non-marketed)

• But, not all ecosystem services that matter to people can be valued in economic terms (esp. cultural services and considerations of intrinsic value)

• Moreover, different stakeholders will place different weights on different attributes of ecosystems

• Deliberative decision-making processes provide a mechanism to enable these different types of value considerations to be articulated.

Business bottom line

1. Growing Costs and Risks Ecosystem services that are inexpensive or

freely available today will cease to be available or become more costly

· E.g., water, fish, storm protection, local climate, flood control

Growing risks associated with ecosystem changes

· Disease emergence, resource collapse, etc. · Businesses cannot assume there will be ample

warning of changes in the availability of key ecosystem services

· Businesses cannot assume their past responses to changes will be successful in the future.


2. Changes to Framework Conditions Customer preferences Risks of regulatory

action Investor pressure Public campaigns Cost of capital Cost of insurance Employee well-being


3. New Business Opportunities New markets

· E.g., Carbon market

New incentives· E.g., payments for

ecosystem services

New businesses· E.g., ecosystem

restoration

New Technologies

Company Ecosystem Service Audit

Undertake an ‘ecosystem service audit’ What ecosystem services are

used or influenced? Evaluate risks to those

services Look for cost savings

Assess information needs, expertise needed, and management plans

Evaluate operating environment

Factor into business strategies

Washington Post, March 30, 2005

Detroit Free Press, April 4 2005

Melbourne, Australia, March 30, 2005

“...hmmpf... an ecosystem? what's that exactly?”

Front page Le Monde April 5, 2005

Millennium Ecosystem Assessment: Overview of Findings.

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