Report Reveals Widespread Decline of World's Ecosystems

WASHINGTON, DC, April 17, 2000 -- Summary findings of a new report reveal a widespread decline in the condition of the world's ecosystems due to increasing resource demands and warn that if the decline continues it could have devastating implications for human development and the welfare of all species.

"Many signs point to the declining capacity of ecosystems," says the Guide to the World Resources 2000-2001: People and ecosystems: The Fraying Web of Life. The full report, to be released in September, is published by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), the World Bank and the World Resources Institute (WRI). Over 175 scientists contributed to the report, which took more than two years to produce.

Ecosystems are communities of interacting organisms and the physical environment in which they live; they are the biological engines of the planet. At the heart of the report is the first-of-its-kind Pilot Analysis of Global Ecosystems (PAGE). The report examines coastal, forest, grassland, freshwater and agricultural ecosystems.

It analyzes their health on the basis of their ability to produce the goods and services that the world currently relies on. These include production of food, provision of pure and sufficient water, storage of atmospheric carbon, maintenance of biodiversity and provision of recreation and tourism opportunities.

The scorecards that accompany the World Resources 2000-2001 describe most of the ecosystems in fair, but declining conditions. The statistics it contains are staggering:

• Half of the world's wetlands were lost last century.
• Logging and conversion have shrunk the world's forests by as much as half.
• Some 9 percent of the world's tree species are at risk of extinction; tropical deforestation may exceed 130,000 square kilometers per year.
• Fishing fleets are 40 percent larger than the ocean can sustain.
• Nearly 70 percent of the world's major marine fish stocks are overfished or are being fished at their biological limit.
• Soil degradation has affected two-thirds of the world's agricultural lands in the last 50 years.
• Some 30 percent of the world's original forests have been converted to agriculture.
• Since 1980, the global economy has tripled in size and population has grown by 30 percent to 6 billion people.
• Dams, diversions or canals fragment almost 60 percent of the world's largest rivers.
  The copyright of the article Report Reveals Widespread Decline of World's Ecosystems in Environment is owned by Kenneth Friedman. Permission to republish Report Reveals Widespread Decline of World's Ecosystems in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

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