Open
Forum
New
Delhi, 3 June 2020
Understanding
Biodiversity
ECOLOGICAL BALANCE
VITAL
By Dhurjati Mukherjee
The rapid decline in
biodiversity, faster than any time in history, with 1 million species facing
extinction, many within decades, has triggered worldwide concern and scientists
are engrossed over what transformative action is needed to save our natural systems.
The Convention on
Biological Diversity (CBD) was set up to protect life on earth and be the basis
for all environmental debate. The UN declared the decade as ‘International
Decade of Biodiversity.’ However, protecting wealth and ensuring judicious
measures haven’t been taken by most nations as the decade draws to an end this
year. Will a new conference scheduled in October evolve some strategy with
definite targets, in the backdrop that the World Environment Day has chosen
‘Biodiversity’ as the theme, indicating the thrust on the subject in 2020.
Humanity’s
culpability in what many scientists believe to be a planetary emergency has
been reaffirmed by a detailed and depressing Intergovernmental Science Policy
Platform on Biodiversity & Ecosystem Services (IPBES) report by
international experts, based on thousands of scientific studies whose findings
are indeed quite grim.
A major report
published by the Intergovernmental Science Policy Platform on Biodiversity &
Ecosystem Services (IPEBS) in 2019 found that an average of 25 per cent of all
animal and plant species assessed face extinction, many within decades. This
translates into around 1 million species that face extinction unless urgent and
drastic action is taken to protect them. Moreover, the recently released State
of India’s Birds Report 2020’ showed that while our national bird peacock is
doing well, over a hundred species of birds face extinction.
It may also be
mentioned that the IPBES Global Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem
Services last year, compiled by 145 experts/authors from 50 countries with
inputs from 310 contributing authors over the past three years, is another
comprehensive report ever completed and builds on the landmark Millennium
Ecosystem Assessment of 2005, introducing innovative ways of evaluating
evidence. The Report assessed changes over the past five decades, providing a
comprehensive picture of the relationship between economic development pathways
and their impacts on nature and offers a range of possible scenarios for the
coming decades.
Biodiversity ensures
natural sustainability for all life on the planet. For example, more abundant
crops and fresher air. Over 3 billion people depend on marine and coastal
biodiversity, while over 1.6 billion people rely on forests for livelihood. The
loss of biodiversity affects lives of over 1 billion people living in drylands.
Thus, biological diversity continues to be a subject of intense research to
investigate and further broaden our knowledge as only 1.3 million of an
estimated 10 million species of plants and animals have been identified till
date.
Research is ongoing
over economic linkages of biological wealth, which unfortunately is not well
circulated in discussions on environment and development. Though there is a
vague understanding of the multiplicity of species on planet earth, there is no
clarity on how this diversity gives stability to life and also provides
ecosystem services to villagers and city dwellers. A book, ‘The Sixth Extinction’
by Elizabeth Kolhert, published a few years back, warned of a devastating
sequel with plant and animal species on land and sea disappearing at a rapid
pace and their habitats destroyed by human activities.
In India, it is
ironic that it was the first country to enact a Biodiversity Act in 2002 and
the National Biodiversity Authority was established a year later. The Act was
built on three goals of CBD – conservation of biodiversity, encouraging its
sustainable use and ensuring the benefits arising from its use are equitably
shared with those who helped in conserving the country’s biological wealth. It put
in place a 3-tier structure to manage biological diversity and there are State biodiversity
boards with some even having biodiversity committees in many local bodies.
International
attempts have been made at measuring economic benefits from biodiversity. A
report ‘The Economics of Ecosystems & Biodiversity’ (TEEB) estimated
benefits of US $3.7 trillion from avoiding greenhouse gas emissions through forest
conservation, which happens to be just one ecosystem service function from
biodiversity.
A new instrument
called Reducing Emissions from Deforestation & Degradation of Forests’
(REED) was introduced at the Copenhagen conference in 2009 to channel funds for
forests’ preservation. But not much headway was made since and clearing of
forests and destruction of wetlands globally continues.
Natural diversity in
form of food crops and land structure has been the basis of agricultural
research and food security of the earth’s growing population. Experts agree that
the present 7-8 billion population and its rapid pace of growth would need at
least four planets to provide them a livable lifestyle. The obvious answer to
solving the current problems lies in agri-biotechnologies by mixing and
matching genetic traits from within and outside the species; this could be the
driver for global, including India’s, agricultural growth and productivity
increase.
Besides, pharmaceutical
and biotechnological industries draw their unique molecules from naturally
occurring biological diversity. This diversity is the basis for the pharma
sector. Around 25-35% if not more of the $649 billion pharmaceutical market is
derived from genetic resources. Bio-prospecting and process of looking for
plant and animal genes need to be geared up in India as the market is expected
to grow to $300 million from around $60-$70 million presently.
India has unique
distinction in this sector, as companies are making significant investments in
bio-manufacturing to enter global markets and global pharma entities are looking
to us as their manufacturing base. Another report published a few years’ back
states China holds 8.5% of global concentration of capacity and employment,
India 8% and Japan and some other Asian countries 9.2%. These areas have been
growing rapidly in bio-manufacturing capacity than the global average.
In view of huge
economic benefits of biological diversity in our daily life, the Government
needs to be serious, given we have a huge population and rising pollution.
While Delhi gets its drinking water from the Himalayas, Mumbai and Bengaluru
get it from the Western Ghats and Chennai is also dependent on the Ghats to
trap and release water into the Krishna River.
Meanwhile, a paper ‘A
Global Deal for Nature’ (published in Science Advances in April 2019)
recommended a two-fold increase in the protected land area and a four-fold
increase in marine reserves over the next decade. If policies are rigorously
pursued, it may effectively quarantine about 30% of the world’s land and
oceans.
A new global
biodiversity strategy for the next decade will be adopted at the UN
Biodiversity Conference, to be held China in October. The adoption of a Global
Biodiversity Framework, and many others issues, which aim at ensuring balance
of life in this ecosystem – bacteria to plants, animals, birds etc. – are to be
debated. A longer 2050 goal called ‘Living in harmony with nature’ is to be decided.
In conclusion,
biodiversity being subjective and lack of sincerity by implementing agencies,
the targets have not delivered results. However, if there is determination to
implement the strategy adopted at this conference, targets could be achieved
and it may be possible to bring a certain balance between the weight of humans,
domesticated animals and wild species. The challenge is indeed quite grave and
national governments, including India, would need to outline specific steps they
would take to maintain global balance of temperature, water and air. ---INFA
(Copyright, India
News & Feature Alliance)
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