UP TO a fifth of plant and animal species worldwide are currently at risk of extinction, while the rate of ongoing extinctions, courtesy of man’s despoiling of the planet, is 1,000 times that at which species would naturally disappear. Against that background, the UN yesterday launched its International Year of Biodiversity.
The 20th century saw an 18-fold increase in global economic output in the course of which we destroyed 45 per cent of the planet’s original forests, up to 10 per cent of coral reefs, and half of all coastal mangroves. On current trends 34,000 plant and 5,200 animal species - including one in eight of the world’s bird species - face extinction. In Ireland, for example, that includes 18 once-familiar species: black-necked grebe, common scoter, hen harrier, red grouse, grey partridge, quail, corncrake, lapwing, curlew, red-necked phalarope, roseate tern, barn owl, nightjar, ring ouzel, chough, twite, yellowhammer and corn bunting.
Yet if we have failed to stop the decline in species, perhaps there has been one limited success – the growing understanding that we need to protect species, and the ecosystems which are necessary to them, not for their intrinsic sake alone, but for ours. It is not about the loss of exotic species which have been the focus of conservation activities. It is about the vital resources which underpin the wealth and health of the worlds poor and that provide the vital needs for the wellbeing of us all.
That awareness has prompted economists to try to calculate in monetary terms the hidden value contributed by nature to our wellbeing. That is not easy, but failure to do so, for example in not calculating the real costs to society of carbon gas emissions or the added value of the pollination of crops by bees, leads to serious failure of the market to act as a balancing mechanism. The steady loss of forests, soils, wetlands and coral reefs is closely tied to this economic invisibility. Recognising and rewarding the value delivered to society by the natural environment must become a policy priority.
A 2008 report for the Department of the Environment puts the positive contribution of biodiversity to the Irish economy at €2.6 billion a year, perhaps ten or more times the amount spent in protecting and promoting it. One in 40 jobs in Europe is now linked to the environment, ranging from clean tech “eco-industries” to organic agriculture, sustainable forestry and eco-tourism. Investment in this, our natural capital, is the only way to ensure a sustainable future for our children.