Putting Nature in the equation
How will the planet cope with two billion more people in an increasingly urbanized world?
“Nature is the missing fourth dimension of the water-food-energy security nexus,” says Dr Mark Smith, Director of IUCN’s Water Programme.
In less than two decades, demand for freshwater globally will be 40% more than what is available if we continue on the path of business as usual.
Examples of the ruinous cost:
Construction of the Diama Dam meant that by 1994, the Senegal Delta was starved of annual floods. The Delta became hyper-salinised and choked with invasive weeds. Ecosystem services were gone. Daily income from fishing and livestock grazing was virtually eliminated. In Rwanda, there are less reliable flows to downstream hydropower because of draining (for farming) of the Rugezi Wetlands and degradation of the surrounding Rugezi-Bulera-Ruhondo watershed. The result: a two-thirds fall in power generation from the dams, a 250% hike in electricity prices prior to 2006, with US$ 65,000 spent daily on diesel for generators.
World’s oceans in ‘shocking’ decline ~ June 2011
“Compared to the 70s, massive decline in corals and fish species.” Jack and Jude have been speaking about this degradation for over forty years
“Changes happening faster than we’d thought” ~ “cumulative effect far worse.”
In a new report, ocean life is “at high risk of entering a phase of extinction of marine species unprecedented in human history.”
Over-fishing, pollution and climate change are acting together in ways that have not previously been recognised. The impacts, they say, are already affecting humanity.
World Population Policies by DESA
The Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations
High population growth remains a salient concern in the developing world. Many Governments in developing countries have realized the importance of reducing high rates of population growth in order to ease mounting pressure on renewable and non-renewable resources, combat climate change, prevent food shortages and provide decent employment and basic social services to all their inhabitants.
Species loss rates
During the last century, decreases in biodiversity have been increasingly observed. German Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel cited estimates that up to 30% of all species will be extinct by 2050
New South Wales Government Environment Report states broad scale clearance of native vegetation is the major human activity causing the loss and fragmentation of habitat and that habitat loss remains the greatest threat to biodiversity.
