Decline in biodiversity is a direct result of human activity and represents a serious threat to well-being in all regions of the planet, highlight authors of the assessment
Extinction rates of animal and plant species are increasing on an unprecedented scale. The average abundance of native species in most major terrestrial habitats has fallen by at least 20%, mostly since 1900. More than 40% of amphibian species, nearly 33% of corals, and more than a third of all mammals are threatened .
This loss is a direct result of human activity and constitutes a serious threat to human well-being in all regions of the world, warns a group of scientists from 50 countries, including Brazil. They are authors of the first global assessment of the state of nature of the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES).
The summary for policy makers of the report was launched this Monday (06/05), in Paris, after being approved by 132 countries during the seventh plenary session of the body, called “IPCC for biodiversity”, which took place last week in the French capital.
“The health of the ecosystems on which all humanity and species depend is deteriorating faster than ever. We are eroding the very foundations of our economies, livelihoods, food security, health and quality of life around the world,” said Robert Watson, president of IPBES.
Prepared over the last three years by 145 experts, with contributions from another 310 authors, the report assessed changes in biodiversity and ecosystem services – such as food and water supply – over the last five decades. To this end, a systematic review of around 15 thousand scientific, governmental and indigenous knowledge sources and traditional communities was carried out.
“This is the first intergovernmental report that focuses not only on biodiversity, but also its interactions with economic development trajectories and factors that affect nature, such as climate change,” said Eduardo Sonnewend Brondizio, professor at Indiana University, in the United States, The FAPESP Agency.
“Never before has so much data, from different areas, such as natural and social sciences, been brought together to make a detailed assessment of the condition of the environment on a global scale and from an integrated perspective of interaction with society,” said Brondizio.
Based in the United States for more than 20 years, the Brazilian scientist, who was one of the three co-presidents of the report, is one of the researchers responsible for a project supported by FAPESP in partnership with the Belmont Forum – a consortium of the main funding agencies for research projects on environmental changes in the world.
The other Brazilian authors of the report are Ana Paula Aguiar, from the National Institute for Space Research (Inpe); Bernardo Baeta Neves Strassburg, from the International Sustainability Institute (ISS); Christina Adams, from the University of São Paulo (USP); Gabriel Henrique Lui, from the Ministry of the Environment; Maria Manuela Ligeti Carneiro da Cunha, from USP; Pedro Henrique Santin Brancalion, also from USP; It is Rafael Dias Loyola, from the Federal University of Goiás (UFG).
“The contribution of the Brazilian authors was exceptional because they all managed to bring an integrated social and ecological perspective to the report. They placed their respective specialties, such as ecology, public policy and environmental scenarios, in an interdisciplinary context,” said Brondizio.
Worst network
The report points out that ecosystems, species, wild populations, local varieties of plants and domesticated animals are shrinking, deteriorating or disappearing. In this way, the essential, interconnected network of life on Earth is becoming smaller and increasingly frayed.
At least 680 species of vertebrates have been driven to extinction since the 16th century, and more than 9% of all domesticated breeds of mammals used for food and agriculture were extinct by 2016. Additionally, an estimated 1 million animal and plant species are now threatened with extinction.
Among the factors responsible for this decline in species are, in descending order, changes in land and sea use, direct exploitation of organisms, climate change, pollution and invasive toxic species.
Since 1980, greenhouse gas emissions have doubled, raising the global average temperature by at least 0,7°C. Global warming has already affected nature, from the ecosystem to the genetics of species, and the impacts are expected to increase in the coming decades, in some cases, surpassing the impact of changes in land and sea use and other factors, the authors point out.
“The summary shows that the situation of biodiversity and ecosystem services, essential for quality of life, is even more critical than that of global warming,” he said Carlos Joly, professor at Unicamp and coordinator of the BIOTA-FAPESP program.
Joly coordinated the IPBES Multidisciplinary Panel of Experts in its first years of existence, alongside Australian Mark Londsdeale, from the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO), and is a member of the coordination of the Brazilian Platform for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services ( BPBES, its acronym in English), whose creation was inspired by IPBES.
The report also highlights that three-quarters of the terrestrial environment and 66% of the marine environment have been significantly altered by human actions. On average, these trends were less severe or avoided in areas maintained or managed by indigenous peoples and local communities.
More than a third of the world's land surface and almost 75% of freshwater resources are now dedicated to agricultural or livestock production. The value of agricultural production has increased by around 300% since 1970, logging has increased by 45%, and approximately 60 billion tonnes of renewable and non-renewable resources are extracted globally each year – a number that has nearly doubled since 1980.
Land degradation, however, has reduced the productivity of 23% of the global land surface. Up to $577 billion in annual global crops are at risk from pollinator loss and between 100 and 300 million people are at increased risk from floods and hurricanes due to the loss of coastal habitats and protection, the report's authors highlight.
Plastic pollution has grown 10-fold since 1980 and between 300 and 400 million tons of heavy metals, solvents, toxic sludge and other waste from industrial facilities are dumped into the world's waters annually.
Fertilizers used in agriculture and entering coastal ecosystems have produced more than 400 oceanic "dead zones" totaling more than 245 square kilometers (km2) – a combined area larger than that of the United Kingdom, the researchers calculated.
“The report shows that richer or more privileged populations have become accustomed to ignoring environmental problems because they do not deal with the impacts on a daily basis. It is the poorest or least privileged populations who are suffering the impact of this standard of living, in the form of pollution, deforestation and mining activities in places far from the eyes of the rest of the world,” said Brondizio.
According to the researchers, negative trends in nature will continue until 2050 and, beyond that period, persist in all policy scenarios explored in the report, except those that include transformative changes – due to the projected impacts of increasing changes in land use, exploitation of organisms and climate change, although with significant differences between regions.
Despite progress in conservation policies, the authors consider that global goals to conserve and use nature sustainably and to achieve sustainability cannot be achieved on current trajectories. The goals until 2030 and beyond can only be achieved through transformative changes and political and technological factors, they consider.
One of the recommended actions is the adoption of integrated and intersectoral management approaches that take into account the trade-offs of food and energy production, infrastructure, freshwater and coastal management and biodiversity conservation.
“We have not yet reached a point of irreversibility in the loss of biodiversity and the consequent degradation of ecosystem services essential for quality of life. If we make decisions now, to, together and in a coordinated and cooperative way, promote integrated, inclusive, transformative changes based on the best scientific knowledge available, it is possible to reverse the speed of degradation”, said Joly.
“This necessarily involves being able to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement, as global warming is already one of the main drivers of the loss of biodiversity and degradation of ecosystem services”, he highlighted.
The authors also identify as a key element of more sustainable future policies the evolution of global financial and economic systems, aiming to build a sustainable global economy, moving away from the current limited paradigm of economic growth.
“The report shows that it is necessary to change the narrative that economic development is an end in itself and that all the costs of achieving it, such as environmental degradation and social inequality, are inevitable and justifiable,” said Brondizio.
More information: www.ipbes.net
