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Global ‘eco-survey’ plan gets a rough ride

14 January 1999 (Nature Vol 397, page 97)

[LONDON] A Millenium Assessment of the State of the World's Ecosystems, under which thousands of scientists from around the world would assess the extent to which ecosystems can continue to support human needs, has been proposed by a group of scientists and environment policymakers.

The proposed assessment has been modelled partly on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change ( IPCC ), an organization of climate scientists set up in 1987 by the United Nations Environmental Programme and the World Meteorological Organization.

But despite its support in the scientific and conservation community, governments of both developed and developing countries have given a lukewarm response to the proposal. There is a feeling that while such an assessment may be worthwhile scientifically, few governments will pay attention to a document whose contents they are unable to influence.

The first international scientific assessment of the state of the world's ecosystems would aim to identify ecosystem 'hot spots' constituents of the natural environment, such as species, forests, and fisheries that are under threat -- and suggest remedial action. It would begin next year and end in 2002, being repeated every 5-10 years.

The assessment's overall aim would be to provide a single source of accurate, policy-relevant ecological science advice to national governments, as well as to UN environmental conventions, including those covering climate change, biodiversity, desertification, fish stocks, and forests.

The project has received enthusiastic backing including some promises of financial support from, among others, the World Resources Institute, and the World Conservation Union (IUCN); the World Bank, various United Nations agencies, the International Council for Science (ICSU), the Megascience Forum of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

It is also supported by the government of Ecuador, whose environment minister is president of IUCN. But representatives of many other governments are less enthusiastic. One specific concern is that conservation groups may use the results of such an assessment in their effort to influence national conservation policies: at present, these groups are denied a strong voice on the main international conservation decision making body, the UN biodiversity convention.

In addition, one representative from a developed country points out that countries attached to the UN biodiversity convention have already given their blessing to the more focused but so far unfunded -- project, the Global Taxonomy Initiative, that has been put forward by Diversitas, a network of scientists organized through the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, and ICSU. This aims to carry out primary taxonomic research, and also train scientists in developing countries.

Even though it has the unanimous support of governments, funding agencies such as the UN's Global Environment Facility (GEF) appear unlikely to fund the taxonomy initiative. In contrast, the ecosystems assessment has the enthusiastic support of GEF's chief executive, Mohammed El-Ashry.

But according to John Ashe, however, Antigua and Barbuda's ambassador to the United Nations, there has been no similar request for an ecosystems assessment from any of the UN environmental conventions. "This looks like scientists dreaming up jobs for themselves," says Ashe. "If such an assessment is needed, it ought to be requested by governments themselves, and not handed down in this top down way."

Ashe's scepticism is shared by many policymakers from both developed and developing countries. Tewolde Berhan Egziabher, for example, general manager of the Environmental Protection Agency of Ethiopia, says that the climate convention's member countries had asked the IPCC for guidance on the possibility of human-induced climate change as "there was a major difference of opinion among scientists" on that issue. By contrast, he says, "I don't think that anyone in conservation is saying that species extinction or natural resource depletion is not an important issue."

Both Egziabher and Maurice Iwu, a member of the Nigerian delegation to the biodiversity convention, acknowledge that an ecosystem assessment has scientific merits, "provided that it involves carrying out primary research in the field, and is not a re-hash of what we already know".

Another concern for developing countries, is the strong support for the initiative from conservation groups and from UNEP. Relations between developing countries and the conservation community including UNEP have often been tense. This is partly because the former suspect the latter of promoting conservation at the expense of development.

Six years ago, state parties to the UN biodiversity convention snubbed an assessment of the state of the world's biodiversity by UNEP on the grounds that the agency had failed to obtain their consent or that of their scientific advisory body before undertaking the study.

Abdul Hamid Zakri, the Malaysian chairman of the biodiversity convention's scientific advisory body, says that most developing countries interpreted the UNEP document as "others telling us what our priorities are". He thinks that the ecosystems assessment will have a better reception provided it is intended as "guidance only and is not in any way an obligatory measure".

But the assessment's backers particularly conservation groups are partly motivated by a growing sense that the existing scientific advisory bodies attached to UN environmental conventions have become too political; that their government-appointed member scientists are unduly influenced by national or regional political priorities when providing scientific advice.

Walter Reid, director of the millenium assessment and a visiting fellow at the World Resources Institute, says that a major priority is to develop a "feeling of ownership" for the idea among as many governments as possible, while at the same time ensuring that the advice is of the highest scientific quality.

This will partly be achieved by inviting governments to nominate the assessment's technical lead authors. But the authors themselves will be chosen on their scientific merits by a separate policy committee comprising representatives of UN and non government scientific and environmental institutions. ICSU will play a prominent role.

A second priority is to make clear -- particularly to developing countries -- that the assessment will not emphasize conservation at the expense of development goals, but will aim to find ways of slowing down resource depletion without affecting livelihoods.

Other priorities include involving social as well as natural scientists in the assessment's design Reid says that the project's organizers do not want to repeat the experience of the UNEP biodiversity assessment. He promises that if the ecosystems assessment does not generate enough support from policymakers after a one-year pilot to be launched this year, the main assessment will be abandoned.

EHSAN MASOOD



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