Green protection pays

UNITED NATIONS – The UN environment chief has a message for leaders of the world’s major industrialised nations: scientists have recently shown that it pays to preserve forests, coastal waters and marshes.

As the Group of Eight started meeting in Scotland yesterday to discuss global warming and climate change, Klaus Toepfer made the case that investing in the environment will go a long way towards meeting UN goals to reduce poverty, supply clean drinking water and fight the spread of infectious diseases. “Our motto is environment for development,” he said in an interview last week.”We need three kinds of capital for development – financial capital, human capital and nature’s capital, and it is the centre.”Toepfer said environmental destruction is a barrier to achieving UN development goals which call for cutting the proportion of people without access to clean water and basic sanitation by half and reducing the number of people living in extreme poverty by half by 2015.The G8 summit will be addressing global warming and climate change – and Toepfer expressed hope that the leaders will see the link between this critical issue and development.British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who is hosting the summit, wants an agreement among G8 leaders on the scientific threat posed by global warming and the urgent need for action.But the United States rejects the Kyoto Protocol, which calls for cutting carbon dioxide and other gas emissions believed to contribute to global warming.US President George W Bush has called for shifting the debate away from limits on greenhouse gas emissions to new technology that would reduce environmental damage without restricting energy use.Toepfer, who heads the Nairobi-based UN Environment Programme, said scientific data shows that destruction of the environment is a direct cause of many problems faced in the world today – including poverty, declining health, hunger, undrinkable water, disease, migration from rural to urban areas, and conflict.”So the environment is not a luxury, not a Gucci accessory bag or a fancy silk tie affordable only when all other issues have been resolved,” he told a UN ministerial meeting last week.”It is the oxygen breathing life into all the goals.It is the red ribbon running around our common aspirations for a healthier, more stable and just world.”Toepfer said the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment – a recent study compiled by 1 360 scientists from 95 nations who pored over 16 000 satellite photos from the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration and analysed statistics and scientific journals – underscored that the environment is critically important for development.In many countries from China to the Middle East, he said, there is growing concern about the supply of clean water.The study found that humans had depleted 60 per cent of the world’s grasslands, forests, farmlands, rivers and lakes.It also found that 12 per cent of birds, 23 per cent of mammals, 25 per cent of conifers and 32 per cent of amphibians are threatened with extinction – and that the world’s fish stocks have been reduced by an astonishing 90 per cent since the start of industrial fishing.The assessment concluded, for example, that a wetland in Canada is worth US$6 000 a hectare compared with US$2 000 a hectare if it is cleared for intensive agriculture.Tropical mangroves and coastal areas that are nurseries for fish and filter pollution naturally are worth about US$1 000 a hectare compared with around US$200 a hectare if they are cleared for shrimp farms, Toepfer said.In Sri Lanka, the assessment estimated that the more than 3 000 hectare Muthurajawela Marsh is worth an estimate US$5 million a year because of its important environmental benefits including flood control, he said.Studies from Algeria, Italy, Portugal, Syria and Tunisia also pointed to the value of preserving forests.They estimated that the value of timber and fuel wood from a forest is less than a third of the forest’s value as a watershed, an absorber of pollutants including greenhouse gases, and a venue for recreation, Toepfer said.He called for an end to illegal logging and new investments in restoring damaged wetlands, forests, mangroves, coral reefs, and other natural habitats.- Nampa-AP”Our motto is environment for development,” he said in an interview last week.”We need three kinds of capital for development – financial capital, human capital and nature’s capital, and it is the centre.”Toepfer said environmental destruction is a barrier to achieving UN development goals which call for cutting the proportion of people without access to clean water and basic sanitation by half and reducing the number of people living in extreme poverty by half by 2015.The G8 summit will be addressing global warming and climate change – and Toepfer expressed hope that the leaders will see the link between this critical issue and development.British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who is hosting the summit, wants an agreement among G8 leaders on the scientific threat posed by global warming and the urgent need for action.But the United States rejects the Kyoto Protocol, which calls for cutting carbon dioxide and other gas emissions believed to contribute to global warming.US President George W Bush has called for shifting the debate away from limits on greenhouse gas emissions to new technology that would reduce environmental damage without restricting energy use.Toepfer, who heads the Nairobi-based UN Environment Programme, said scientific data shows that destruction of the environment is a direct cause of many problems faced in the world today – including poverty, declining health, hunger, undrinkable water, disease, migration from rural to urban areas, and conflict.”So the environment is not a luxury, not a Gucci accessory bag or a fancy silk tie affordable only when all other issues have been resolved,” he told a UN ministerial meeting last week.”It is the oxygen breathing life into all the goals.It is the red ribbon running around our common aspirations for a healthier, more stable and just world.”Toepfer said the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment – a recent study compiled by 1 360 scientists from 95 nations who pored over 16 000 satellite photos from the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration and analysed statistics and scientific journals – underscored that the environment is critically important for development.In many countries from China to the Middle East, he said, there is growing concern about the supply of clean water.The study found that humans had depleted 60 per cent of the world’s grasslands, forests, farmlands, rivers and lakes.It also found that 12 per cent of birds, 23 per cent of mammals, 25 per cent of conifers and 32 per cent of amphibians are threatened with extinction – and that the world’s fish stocks have been reduced by an astonishing 90 per cent since the start of industrial fishing.The assessment concluded, for example, that a wetland in Canada is worth US$6 000 a hectare compared with US$2 000 a hectare if it is cleared for intensive agriculture.Tropical mangroves and coastal areas that are nurseries for fish and filter pollution naturally are worth about US$1 000 a hectare compared with around US$200 a hectare if they are cleared for shrimp farms, Toepfer said.In Sri Lanka, the assessment estimated that the more than 3 000 hectare Muthurajawela Marsh is worth an estimate US$5 million a year because of its important environmental benefits including flood control, he said.Studies from Algeria, Italy, Portugal, Syria and Tunisia also pointed to the value of preserving forests.They estimated that the value of timber and fuel wood from a forest is less than a third of the forest’s value as a watershed, an absorber of pollutants including greenhouse gases, and a venue for recreation, Toepfer said.He called for an end to illegal logging and new investments in restoring damaged wetlands, forests, mangroves, coral reefs, and other natural habitats.- Nampa-AP