ENVIRONMENT: Biodiversity Brings a Political Divide

By Julio Godoy Reprint | | Print |

Julio Godoy

PARIS, Feb 1 2005 (IPS) - Environmental and scientific experts agree that degradation of biological diversity has reached historical dimensions, but a North-South divide is emerging over action to counter this crisis.

A United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) conference last week recommended creation of a new international scientific body to monitor ecosystems equivalent to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. But scientists are doubtful that such a body could bridge a North-South divide.

“I don’t see an international consensus supporting a new scientific board,” Laurence Tubiana, director of the French Institute for Sustainable Development and International Relations told IPS.

The conference avoided areas of conflicting interests between Europe and North America on the one hand, and the developing world on the other.

“Unfortunately, the conference did not discuss the problem that over-consumption in Europe and North America represents for biodiversity,” Maria Fernando Espinosa, head of the Equatorial branch of the leading environment group, IUCN – the World Conservation Union told IPS.

Scientists estimate that by 2010 the industrialised countries will consume the energy equivalent of 850 quadrillion tonnes of carbon (ToC; a quadrillion is a unit followed by 15 zeroes). That is more than half the world’s energy consumption. Africa will consume only 54 quadrillion ToC, and Latin America 94 quadrillion ToC.

Espinosa said the conference also avoided other areas of potential conflict such as more equitable distribution of income from use of natural resources, and transfer of technology for sustainable development.

“These questions on the balance of power always arise at all international conferences on trade, development, and environment,” she added.

José Sarukhan from the Mexican National Institute for the Environment said degradation of biodiversity should be on top of the agenda of international organisations governing economic activities, such as the World Trade Organisation.

“The biodiversity crisis reminds us that economic activities such as trade and investment are only instruments to serve society within the borders imposed by environment,” he told IPS.

Charles Perrings, professor of environmental economics at the University of York in Britain said many international trade rules make environmental protection secondary at best. “Under present rules, if international trade or investment cause environmental damage, this damage can only be discussed at international mediation agencies after it has happened. And then it may be too late to prove anything, let alone prevent the damage,” Perrings told IPS.

Perrings said new economic indicators are needed to measure environmental degradation caused by economic activities, such as the gross domestic product. Some new indicators are being considered, but research into this must continue, he added.

U.S. biologist Edward O. Wilson called for the establishment of a direct link between conservation measures and international development policies in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

“Today some 80 percent of the human population lives in developing countries, which are also home to most of the living species,” Wilson told IPS. “People there destroy nature, and thus biological diversity, because they have no other resources to live. Therefore, improving the quality of life in those areas is essential to saving biodiversity.”

Many scientists and environmental activists from the South say that little is being done in the face of this crisis. “We cannot go on researching for ever, because in the meanwhile the crisis of biological diversity will reach irreversible levels,” Sarukhan said.

“We have indicators at the local level on the deterioration of tropical forests, on the purity of water in sources, and on the trends of the disappearance of species in well-established regions, which gave a fairly good measure of the degradation of biological diversity,” Sarukhan said. “Starting with these measures, we can begin to act.”

Sarukhan dismissed calls by some European scientists to first assemble an inventory of all living species to measure the efficiency of conservationist measures. “This is a long-term effort whose results we cannot wait for,” Sarukhan said.