The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment: Connecting ecosystems and their services with environmental and social security.

Prof. Dr. Rik Leemans

Co-Chair Responses Working Group

&

Environmental Systems Analysis Group

Wageningen University

Millennium Ecosystem Assessment

An international scientific assessment of the consequences of ecosystem changes for human well-being: Modeled on the IPCC Providing information requested by:

Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) Convention to Combat Desertification (CCD) Ramsar Convention on Wetlands Convention on Migratory Species (CMS) other partners including the private sector and civil society

With the goals of: stimulating and guiding action to conserve ecosystems and

enhance their contribution to human well-being building capacity to undertake integrated ecosystem assessments

and to act on their information

Millennium Ecosystem Assessment

Human Challenge

Considerable progress has been made in fighting poverty life expectancy increasing infant mortality decreasing agricultural production increasing, etc.

Major problems remain 1.2 billion people live on less than $1 per day 1 billion people do not have access to clean water More than 2 billion people have no access to sanitation 1.3 billion are breathing air below the standards considered

acceptable by WHO 700 million people suffer from indoor air pollution due to biomass

burning

Source: Serageldin, 2002, Science 296:54

Why a Multi-Scale Assessment?Expect that findings at any scale of a multi-scale assessment will

be improved by information and perspectives from other scales

Regional

UsersRegional Development Banks, etc.

NationalGovernment

Local Community

Global Assessment

National

Local

Rationale Characteristic scale of processes

Greater resolution at smaller

scales

Independent validation of

conclusions

Response options matched to

the scale where decision-making

takes place

First MA Product: Conceptual Framework

Ecosystem Services: The benefits people obtain from ecosystems

RegulatingBenefits obtained from

regulation of ecosystem processes

• climate regulation

• disease regulation

• flood regulation

• detoxification

ProvisioningGoods produced or

provided by ecosystems

• food

• fresh water

• fuel wood

• fiber

• biochemicals

• genetic resources

CulturalNon-material benefits

obtained from ecosystems

• spiritual

• recreational

• aesthetic

• inspirational

• educational

• communal

• symbolic

SupportingServices necessary for production of other ecosystem services.

• Soil formation• Nutrient cycling

• Primary production

Ecosystem changes affect human well-being

Security is affected both by changes in provisioning services, which affect supplies of food and other goods and the likelihood of conflict over declining resources, and by changes in regulating services, which could influence the frequency and magnitude of floods, droughts or other catastrophes. It can also be affected by changes in cultural services as, for example, when their loss contributes to the weakening of social relations in a community.

These changes in turn affect material well-being, health, freedom and choice and good social relations.

Human well-being can be enhanced through sustainable human interactions with ecosystems supported by necessary instruments, institutions, organizations, and technology. Creation of these through participation and transparency may contribute to freedoms and choice as well as to increased economic, social, and ecological security. By ecological security, we mean the minimum level of ecological stock needed to ensure a sustainable flow of ecosystem services.

Major issues related to security

Examples: Desertification in China (sand storms) Eutrofication in western coastal ecosystems Long-term droughts and rainfall variability in the Sahel Crop failures in rural Africa

Food and water insecurity is a second primary area of concern in changes in ecosystems services. Multiple domains of vulnerability exist in food security regimes and livelihood systems. Production, economic exchanges, and nutrition are key elements as well as more structural issues associated with the political economy.

Framework Examines Multiple Drivers as they Influence Ecosystems and Human Well-being

Driver

Response

HumanImpact

Ecosystems

Health Economics Social

ClimateChange

Land CoverChange

BiodiversityLoss

NutrientLoading Etc.

Millennium AssessmentIPCC

Climate Change

Energy Sector Biodiversity Food

Supply Water

Health Economics Social

Framework allows examination of trade-offs among services

Source: Ayensu et al. 1999. Science 286:685-686.

Freshwater supply and demand

Food supply and demand

Forest product supply and demand

Biodiversityloss

Climatechange

Water availability

Water use and nutrient loss

Erosion andwater flow

Loss

and f

ragmen

tation

of ha

bitat

Redu

ced r

esilie

nce t

o cha

nge

Habit

at lo

ss

Habitat loss

Loss of crop genetic diversityHabitat change

Change in transpiration & albedo

N, C

H 4, N 20

em

ission

s

Hydr

ologic

CO 2 a

nd

tem

pera

ture

chan

ges

Precipitation & temperature

Land transformation

Conceptual Framework

Conceptual Framework

Conceptual Framework

Conceptual Framework

Conceptual Framework

Conceptual Framework

Preliminary findings of the C&T WG

At a global level there have been substantial improvements in human wellbeing since the 1950s. World population has almost tripled, but the ability to support that population expanded even more. Life expectancy increased and infant mortality rates declined almost everywhere.

More important, however, has been the enormous expansion in human capital. Literacy rates are a proxy for the number of people with at least primary education. Literacy has increased everywhere. Secondary and tertiary education rates have also expanded greatly.

The growth in human well-being over the last several decades has come in large part because of increases in provisioning services from several major ecosystems. Over the last few decades, these changes have been the largest in cultivated systems, with the biggest changes in this time period coming from increased intensification rather than from large-scale conversion of land to agriculture, and coastal and marine systems, from harvesting fish resources and the addition of nutrients in coastal regions as pollutants.

Preliminary findings of the C&T WG

Nutrient cycling is one of the services that has been profoundly affected by human activities over long periods of time, with a significant acceleration in the last few decades. Most of the impact on nutrient cycling has come from the large-scale agricultural changes and its inputs over the last decades. Therefore, most of the tradeoff of increased production against other non-provisioning services, such as nutrient cycling, can be tracked by focusing on areas where agriculture has changed substantially. In the same vein, biodiversity is critical to the performance of all the buffering mechanisms that ensure an efficient use and cycling of nutrients.

Ecosystem changes due to trade-offs for enhancing provisioning services have played an important role in the emergence or resurgence of infectious diseases. Ecological processes have included: niche invasion, biodiversity loss or animal species extinction, habitat degradation, loss of predator species, or alteration or replacement of animal host population densities.

It is well established that losses in biodiversity are occurring globally at all levels, from ecosystems through species, populations and genes. The current rate of species extinction is higher than at any time in the last 65 million years, and there is an increasing trend for conversion of naturally occurring, species-rich ecosystems into more intensively managed habitats, with reduced biodiversity. The extent of loss of genetic diversity is less well understood, although recorded losses in agricultural genetic diversity are widespread.

Scenarios W.G. 29 Apr 04

What are the consequences for ecosystem services and human well-being of alternative worlds in which different approaches to sustainability are emphasized?

Scenario Name Dominant Approach for Sustainability

Order from Strength Reserves, parks, national-level policies

Global Orchestration Economic growth, public goods

Adapting Mosaic Local-regional governance, common-property institutions

TechnoGarden Green technology

Scenario Working Group

Security status in the MA scenarios

Global Orchestration TechnoGarden

Region Adapting Mosaic Order from Strength

World Up Down Up Down

OECD Up Up Up No change

FSU No change Up No change Down

MENA Down UP Down Down

SSA Down Up Down Down

LA Down UP No change Down

Asia Down Up No change

Diversity (vascular plants) declines in all scenarios(most in Order from Strength, least in TechnoGarden and Adapting Mosaic). Greatest losses in warm mixed forest, savanna, scrub, tropical forest & woodland.

Fish populations are lost due to declining water availability.Differences among scenarios are minor. Most losses offishes occur in poor tropical and subtropical countries.

Our ability to reduce the rate of loss of species’ populations by 2010 is in doubt. Two scenarios (Order from Strength and Global Orchestration) fail to meet the target. The other two may, at best, barely meet the target.

Scenarios: preliminary findings

Preliminary findings of the RWGA misleading dichotomous approach to nature-culture relations is common in policy debates. Certain cultural perceptions of landscapes become dominant or imposed through economic and political forces, often to the detriment of local praxis. Scientific knowledge and the misreading of local praxis has served to justify certain forms of development, resource use, and local institutional changes, leading to high levels of environmental degradation, poverty and food insecurity. Understanding the complexities of different cultural perceptions of landscapes, management of resources and local institutional arrangements contributes to alternative strategies to ecosystem management and socio-economic development. Local communities do not operate in a vacuum, they create multi-level alliances, adopt and adapt global influences to foster their own livelihoods.

To understand the potential impacts on HWB of ecosystem change, two aspects need to be considered: the current vulnerability of the population affected and their future adaptive capacity. These two considerations are closely related, since vulnerable populations are less able to plan and implement adaptive responses.

Preliminary findings of the RWG

Targeted and sequenced intervention strategies were found be more successful than general sectoral or macro level policies. Targeted policies were found to appreciate the heterogeneity of stakeholders and the different type of relationship they have with ecosystem services. Joint forest management systems can be considered as a combination of legal, social, behavioral and cognitive interventions that has worked relatively well in bringing about sustainable management of forest ecosystems, conserving biodiversity and improving human wellbeing by providing security, improving social relations, basic material and last but not least the freedom to make choices individuals and communities value doing and being. On the other hand, sectoral driven forest policies have had limited success. For example protected areas—a form of a legal intervention—has had only limited success in conserving biodiversity and has often had detrimental impacts on poverty reduction for many local communities living around protected areas. Protected areas have essentially excluded local communities from having access to resources that they have historically relied on for food and supplemental income especially during times of stress.

A further insightIntegrated responses (IR) are gaining in importance in both developing and developed countries but they have had mixed results. IR are responses that address degradation of ecosystem services across a number of systems simultaneously, or that also explicitly include objectives to enhance human well-being. IR occur at different scales and across scales, and use a range of instruments for implementation. Increasingly they are associated with the application of multi-stakeholder processes and with decentralization, and they may include actors and institutions from government, civil society and private sector.

Examples include some multi-lateral environmental agreements, environmental policy integration within national governments, and multi-sectoral approaches such as Integrated Coastal Zone Management.

Although many IR make ambitious claims about their likely benefits, in practice the results of implementation have been mixed in terms of ecological, social and economic impacts.

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