Destruction of ancient forests at lowest level in 20 years, UN

Ben Webster, Environment Editor, The Times (May 12, 2010) – The destruction of ancient forests has fallen to its lowest level for 20 years as countries finally begin to deliver on their commitment to protect animal and plant species, according to a UN report.

The variety of life on Earth is still declining rapidly and several regions are close to “tipping points” from which they may not recover, but there are promising signs that most governments have accepted the need to preserve natural resources.

The UN’s Global Biodiversity Outlook report confirms that the world will not meet its target of achieving a significant cut by 2010 in the overall rate at which biodiversity is declining. It calculates that the pollution of fresh waters, degradation of soils and loss of forests, grasslands and coral reefs is costing the world €50 billion (£45 billion) a year in lost “human welfare benefits.”

But it reveals a strongly positive trend towards better protection of the planet’s most unique and sensitive areas of land and sea.

More than 12 per cent of land is now protected by national conservation laws, with 120,000 national parks, reserves and other protected areas.

The total protected area has quadrupled since 1970 to 21 million square kilometres, including 4 million square kilometres of ocean.

A third of the 595 sites that contain the world’s most endangered species are now “completely protected”, compared with only one in 10 in 1970.

Satellite data shows that the annual deforestation of the Brazilian Amazon has slowed from a peak of more than 27,000 square kilometres in 2004 to just over 7,000 square kilometres in 2009.

Canada has protected an additional 210,000 square kilometres of forest since 2002 and the protected area in Madagascar has almost trebled to 47,000 square kilometres since 2003.

Globally, the net loss of forests has slowed from 83,000 square kilometres per year in the 1990s to just over 50,000 square kilometres per year from 2000-2010, mainly due to large-scale tree planting in temperate regions, especially in China.

The rate at which mangroves are declining fell from 1,850 square kilometres a year in the1980s to 1,020 square kilometres a year from 2000-2005.

The report found that conservation standards varied sharply but were “clearly inadequate” in only 13 per cent of protected areas.

Only nine countries have yet to produce national biodiversity strategies. They are Afghanistan, Antigua, Cyprus, Greece, Iceland, Iraq, San Marino, Somalia and the United Arab Emirates.

The report says: “All indicators of the responses to address biodiversity loss are moving in a positive direction. More areas are being protected for biodiversity, more policies and laws are being introduced to avoid damage from invasive alien species and more money is being spent in support of the Convention on Biological Diversity and its objectives.”

However, the UN urged countries to adopt stronger targets when they meet at a biodiversity summit in Japan in October.

Achim Steiner, director of the United Nations Environment Programme, said: “Humanity has fabricated the illusion that somehow we can get by without biodiversity or that it is somehow peripheral to our contemporary world. The truth is we need it more than ever on a planet of six billion, heading to over nine billion by 2050.

“Many economies remain blind to the huge value of the diversity of animals, plants and other life-forms and their role in healthy and functioning ecosystems from forests and fresh waters to soils, oceans and even the atmosphere.”

The report proposes “rewilding” farmland in some regions, including 200,000 square kilometres in Europe. It also calls for the restoration of river basins and other wetlands and points to the success in Iraq, where 58 per cent of the marshland drained under Saddam Hussein’s regime had been reflooded by the end of 2006.

It says that countries need to take difficult decisions to protect wildlife, such as imposing higher taxes on development, encouraging citizens to consume less and taking action to reduce population growth.

“An important step will be for governments to expand their economic objectives beyond what is measured by GDP alone, recognising other measures of wealth and wellbeing that take natural capital and other concepts into account.”

The report drew on about 500 peer-reviewed scientific papers and 110 national reports on biodiversity submitted by governments.