Earth's health deteriorating

Growing populations and expanding economic activity have strained the planet’s ecosystems over the past half century, a trend that threatens international efforts to combat poverty and disease, a UN-sponsored study of the Earth’s health has warned.

The four-year, €18.9m study – the largest-ever to show how people are changing their environment – found that humans had depleted 60% of the world’s grasslands, forests, farmlands, rivers and lakes.

Unless nations adopt more eco-friendly policies, increased human demands for food, clean water and fuels could speed the disappearance of forests, fish and fresh water reserves and lead to more frequent disease outbreaks over the next 50 years, it said.

“For some time, the changes have been good to us: Food output has increased,” said A.H. Zakri, director of the United Nations University Institute of Advanced Studies in Japan. “The problem is these changes have been achieved at growing costs.”

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan stressed that the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment “tells us how we can change course,” and urged nations to consider its recommendations.

Eliminating trade barriers and subsidies, protecting forests and coastal areas, promoting “green” technologies and lowering greenhouse gas emissions thought to contribute to global warming can all help to slow environmental degradation, Zakri said.

The study was compiled by 1,360 scientists from 95 nations who poured over 16,000 satellite photos from the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and analysed reams of statistics and scientific journals.

Their findings highlight the planet’s problems at the end of the 20th century, as the human population reached 6 billion.

A fifth of coral reefs and a third of the mangrove forests have been destroyed in recent decades.

The diversity of animal and plant species has fallen sharply, and a third of all species are at risk of extinction. Disease outbreaks, floods and fires have become more frequent. Levels of carbon dioxide – a greenhouse gas - in the atmosphere have surged, mostly in the past four decades.

Zakri said sub-Saharan Africa, one of the world’s poorest areas, represents one of the biggest challenges for policymakers.

“The millions of people there have the lowest levels of human well-being but they have only less than 10% of the world’s water supply,” he said.

As the desertlands expand, fewer people there will have access to food and water, making it more difficult for policymakers to raise living standards for those inhabitants, he said.

Zakri said that could hinder progress toward goals adopted at the UN Millennium Summit in Johannesburg, South Africa in September 2000: halving the proportion of people without access to clean water and basic sanitation by 2015 and improving the lives of 100 million slum dwellers by 2020.

Worldwide, some 1.1 billion people still lack access to safe drinking water, with 3 million to 4 million people dying each year from waterborne diseases, according to UN statistics.

The ecosystem assessment was designed by the UN Environment Program, the UN Development Program, the World Bank, the World Resources Institute, the Global Environment Facility and others. Governments, non-governmental organisations, foundations, academic institutions and the private sector also contributed their expertise.