With Biodiversity Loss Accelerating, ‘We Are Bankrupting Our Natural Economy’,

 

Says Secretary-General in Remarks at Event to Launch International Year

 

Following are UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon’s remarks at event to launch International Biodiversity Year at American Museum of Natural History, delivered by Olav Kjorven, Assistant Secretary-General and Director, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Bureau for Development Policy, in New York, 10 February:

I am pleased to be here in this spectacular monument to some of Earth’s most magnificent species.

Sadly many ‑‑ such as the blue whale which dominates this hall ‑‑ are endangered to the point of extinction.

The reason is simple:  human activities.  Yours, mine, everyone’s.

We have all heard of the web of life.  My worry is that the way we live has enmeshed us in a web of death.

Science tells us that our actions have pushed extinctions to 1,000 times the natural background rate.

Too many people still fail to grasp the implications.  They fail to see why we need to preserve an obscure amphibian here, an endangered owl there.

Many still think the Earth is ours to use as we like.

This argument betrays a woeful ignorance of ecosystems ‑‑ the importance of life on Earth ‑‑ and its complex interactions ‑‑ to our well-being as a species.

Consider why we have museums, zoos and natural parks ‑‑ why documentaries such as Life, which we will see previewed tonight, are so popular.

We have a cultural and spiritual connection to the natural world.

Some may scoff at philosophical arguments for protecting biodiversity.

I don’t.  Such feelings lie at the heart of human experience.

But, in any case, the economic case should be reason enough.

Ecosystem services are directly linked to the bottom line.  They are our natural capital.

When Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, people woke up ‑‑ too late ‑‑ to the role that wetlands can play in minimizing the impact of storm surges.

Yet we often take ecosystem services for granted, and regard them as free.  As a result, we fail to give them a value, and fail to protect them.

When environmentalists try to prevent habitat destruction ‑‑ often in the name of an endangered species ‑‑ they are held up for ridicule or branded as extremists.

Too often environmental protection is seen as conflicting with economic protection.  In fact they are two sides of the same coin.

For example, here in New York City water is cheap and clean because the city chose to invest in protecting the Catskills watershed, saving several billions of dollars in the process.

All over the world, ecosystem services are a massive undervalued subsidy provided by the environment.

When we lose these services through mismanagement, crops fail, profits drop, people become poorer, economies suffer.

Think of the human cost of deforestation in countries such as Haiti and Ethiopia, or the dustbowl in this country in the 1930s.

A UN-backed study estimates that loss of natural capital due to deforestation and land degradation alone stands at between $2 trillion and $4.5 trillion each year.

Last year’s financial crisis was a wake-up call to Governments on the perils of failing to oversee and regulate complex relationships that affect us all.

The biodiversity crisis is no different.  We are bankrupting our natural economy.  We need to fashion a rescue package before it is too late.

This year is not only the International Year of Biodiversity ‑‑ it is the deadline by which the world had pledged to substantially reduce the rate of biodiversity loss.

The 2010 target will not be met.  The global decline in biodiversity is accelerating.

In fact, last week’s Trondheim Biodiversity Conference ‑‑ organized by the Convention on Biological Diversity, the UN and the Government of Norway ‑‑ showed that biodiversity loss and ecosystem decline are much worse than expected.

The main causes include deforestation, changes in habitat and land degradation.  The growing impact of climate change is compounding the problem.

As with most emergencies, those hardest hit are the poor.

In this International Year, we need to show the link between biodiversity and human well-being.

We must demonstrate the concrete benefits of investing in our natural capital.

We need to show that protecting ecosystems can help us achieve the Millennium Development Goals and build resilience to climate change.

We are helped in such work by programmes such as the UNDP Equator Initiative, and the Global Environment Facility Small Grants Programme.

Today’s event marks the first public call for nominations for the 2010 Equator Prize.

I urge you to draw inspiration from earlier prize-winners:  the Indonesian communities who have restored fish stocks; the Brazilian women who are sustainably using rare forest species for natural medicines and cosmetics; the African farmers who have seen crop yields jump five-fold.

They are showing how protecting nature benefits people.

Later this year, the UN General Assembly will hold a high-level segment on biodiversity.  We will also have an MDG Summit.

We must use these events and this International Year to send a clear message to the Nagoya meeting of the Convention on Biological Diversity in October.

The biodiversity crisis is worsening.  We need a new strategy that better links climate change, biodiversity and the Millennium Development Goals ‑‑ concrete targets and a new vision for conserving Earth’s biological diversity for the benefit of all.

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