Trade-off: clearing trees to make way for cotton farming, Burkina Faso
Plants or people? The debate continues
David Dickson
23 May 2005
Is preserving biodiversity compatible with achieving the United Nations' Millennium Development Goals? Judging by reactions to the most recent report on global biodiversity, the answer seems to depend on where one is coming from.
Last Sunday — for those who may not have noticed — was World Biodiversity Day. This is an annual event nominated by the United Nations, and intended to deepen awareness of the fact that human survival depends on safeguarding plant and animal life on Earth. This year's biological diversity day sought to capture this concept in its theme: 'Biodiversity is the life insurance of life itself'.
Those of a semantic frame of mind, however, should perhaps not inquire too closely about the meaning of this statement. After all, life insurance is usually used to refer to the money paid to an individual in the event of his or her death or injury. It is difficult to square this neatly with the concept that those who came up with the slogan were no doubt trying to convey: that a healthy biodiversity is essential for all inhabitants of the planet to lead a healthy life.
In itself, of course, the ambiguity in the slogan is not important. But it does reflect deeper — and much more significant — uncertainty over how we should think about biodiversity. In particular, it demonstrates a deep-rooted ambivalence about how we should link thoughts to actions in our efforts to protect and preserve the world that surrounds us.
Increasingly, those arguing for such action, whether by governments, corporations or individuals, are recognising the importance of placing it within an existing, more familiar, framework of decision-making. By describing biodiversity as 'life insurance', the hope — presumably — was that the idea of obtaining benefits by paying regular, relatively small, premiums would strike a chord with many people who might reject a more abstract message.
Sadly, however, there is no agreement on the nature of this framework. Which makes it difficult when attempting to reach an international consensus on policies in which the preservation of biodiversity is one important dimension — but far from the only one.
The biodiversity challenge
Such issues have been starkly highlighted by the latest report to emerge from the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, a global effort to establish the scientific basis for actions needed to enhance the conservation and sustainable use of ecosystems, as well as their contributions to meeting human needs (see Protecting biodiversity 'may clash with pursuit of MDGs').
Under the title Ecosystems and Human Well-Being, the report gives a graphic and convincing account of the importance of biodiversity for human welfare. It stresses, in particular, the essential role played by what are described as 'ecosystem services', not only through contributing to material livelihood and welfare, for example by providing food, water and traditional medicine, but also in other dimensions (such as a source of cultural inspiration and aesthetic pleasure).
The report repeats an increasingly familiar litany of warnings about the extent to which such services are currently under threat. It points out for example, that changes in biodiversity due to human activities "were more rapid in the past 50 years than at any time in human history".
Not all is gloom and doom. The panel responsible for compiling the report admits that there are certain areas of the world in which, even if biodiversity loss is not being reversed, at least the rate at which such loss is increasing has been slowed down. Indeed, there is substantial evidence of such trends in the report for those looking at positive news about the potential gains from human intervention (even if they are given little attention in what are identified as the report's 'key messages').
But the overall message is a stark one. The "drivers of change" that cause biodiversity loss, it says, "are either steady, show no evidence of declining over time, or are increasing in intensity". Under four "plausible" future scenarios, such rates of change "are projected to continue, or to accelerate".
The report says that an "unprecedented effort" is required even to meet the goal outlined in the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) of "significantly reducing" biodiversity loss by the year 2010.
Political realities
So far, so good. But what does all this mean in the world of international politics? Here we run yet again into the dilemma that there is, as yet, no simple language in which both the science of biodiversity loss, and social actions needed to stem this loss (that are also compatible with other social goals and priorities), can be comfortably discussed.
The most obvious example of this dilemma lies in the tension between the steps that the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment says are essential for biodiversity to be adequately protected — particularly to meet the goals of the CBD — and the separate strategies that others say are just as necessary to achieve the social objective of reducing global poverty (for example, through the UN Millennium Development Goals, or MDGs).
The dilemma is clearly outlined in last week's report. This points out, for example, that building the infrastructure — such as roads and dams — needed to enable rural communities to escape chronic poverty can often have a negative impact on local biodiversity. And that "trade-offs" are therefore required between environmental and social goals (including achieving the MDGs).
Such a suggestion, however, has angered some of those working in the sustainable development field. They argue that the concept of 'trade-offs' is an out-dated way of thinking about the problem, implying as it does that those seeking to reduce poverty and those keen to protect natural biodiversity are, by definition, sitting in opposing camps.
Need for a broad vision
The real challenge, of course, is to produce a set of policy initiatives that embrace the two. In other words, we need to develop a way of thinking about biodiversity issues that does not frame them into a single dimension – conceived essentially as the 'health of the environment' – but is able to locate them in a social context in which rational decisions about what benefits both nature and society can be made.
As is being increasingly pointed out, achieving this goal will require the development of a set of analytical instruments able to produce the data on which such decisions can be made. This is the task that the field of 'environmental economics' has set itself. And despite some early setbacks, when crude efforts at placing a monetary value on environmental goods and services were legitimately ridiculed by environmentalists (and some economists), the field is growing in both legitimacy and impact.
But it also requires a little more humility and imagination on both sides than is frequently present in the exchanges between them. On the one hand, economists need to be more modest about the extent to which either reducing poverty or protecting biodiversity can be achieved through top-down political pressure, market incentives, and the massive injection of public funds. Each of these is essential, but also needs to be integrated into a broader vision of the effective levers of social action.
Conversely, those keen to defend the planet's biodiversity could often benefit from an equal amount of modesty in pushing their own claims to be the top political priority. It is one thing, for example, to emphasise that healthy societies require healthy ecosystems. But it is not the only one. And to argue that concern for the environment should top everything else reflects a brand of fundamentalism that can be dangerously blinkered.
据Scidev.net5月23日消息，保存生物多样性是否与实现联合国的“千年发展目标”相一致呢？根据各国对最近一份全球生物多样性报告的不同反应，可以看出每个国家的情况是不同的。
5月22日是世界生物多样性日，旨在提醒人类要保护地球上的动植物资源，而2005年的主题是“生物多样性——适应变化世界的生命保险”。从一般语义上理解，生命保险就是指某人死亡或受伤后获得的金钱赔偿；而这一主题所要表达的是：健康的生物多样性对于地球上所有居住者来说是至关重要的。虽然口号本身不是特别明确，但反映出人类必须深入思考如何用行动来保护我们生存的环境。
近年来，提倡这一行动的政府、企业或个人日益增加，并且他们认为最好是利用现有的、较熟悉的决策框架。将生物多样性比拟为生命保险，就是指通过定期付出少量费用，然后得到较大利益。但到目前为止，仍然没有关于保存生物多样性的国际性协议。
生物多样性面临的挑战
“千年生态系统评估” （Millennium Ecosystem Assessment）是联合国发起的一项科学评估运动，目的是为加强生态系统的保存和可持续性利用打下科学基础。最近，一份名为“生态系统与人类”的报告通过图片及有力的数据说明了生态系统对人类幸福的重要意义。报告强调，生态系统的服务功能不仅体现在为人类提供物质生存（如食物、水和传统药物），而且还包括其他很多方面（如：作为艺术灵感和审美情趣的来源）。
同时还指出，目前这些服务正处于危险的状况。例如，人类在过去50年里的活动比以往任何时候都更加快速，因此给生物多样性带来了不小的变化。
当然，负责编辑这一报告的研究人员也承认，世界上某些地区的生物多样性流失率已经开始下降。报告为此提供了充分的证据，表明人类的行动给生物多样性可能带来的正面影响（即使人类只是对此稍加重视）。
但整体情况是不容乐观的。引起生物多样性流失的动机是稳步增长的，短期内不会有所下降。因此，要达到《生物多样性公约》（Convention on Biological Diversity）的目标——到2010年大大减少生物多样性流失，人类还是需要付出极大努力的。
政治因素
目前，没有一个国家可以轻松地讨论用生物多样性科学和社会行动来阻止生物多样性的流失。最明显的例子就是，“千年生态系统评估”指出生物多样性应该得到充分保护，以实现《生物多样性公约》的目标；另一方面，其他还有用于消除全球贫困的单独策略（如，联合国千年发展目标）。
“生态系统与人类”报告清楚地描述了这一困境。如，建设基础设施（道路、水坝）可以使农村摆脱贫困，但也给当地的生物多样性造成了负面影响。这种“交替换位”的情况在保护环境和实现社会目标两者之间是必需出现的（包括实现联合国千年发展目标）。
但是，这一提议惹怒了那些支持可持续发展的人们。他们认为“交替换位”的理念用来处理这类问题早已经是过时了，这种概念只能表明寻求消除贫困和保护生物多样性一定是水火不容的。
必需的远见卓识
当然，我们真正面临的挑战就是要制定一套能同时处理好这两点问题的政策方针。换句话说，我们在考虑生物多样性问题时的方式不能局限于单一的范围之内，站在整个社会的角度出发，不仅要保护自然还要有利于社会。
而要制定这些政策，我们需要一套能够产生数据的分析设备，这就是“环境经济学”领域的任务了。虽然用货币价值衡量环境商品和服务的努力在早期遭遇了一些挫折，也受到环境论者（和一些经济学家）的嘲笑，但这一领域正在不断步入正轨。通过政治压力、市场刺激、和政府资金大量注入等方式来减少贫困和保护生物多样性，经济学家对可能获取的成功尺度也需要采取更为保守的态度。因为，虽然每一个因素都是基本的，但还需要运用社会行动的有效杠杆将它们融合进入一个更为宽泛的概念中。
