Conservation and Sustainable Use of the Biosphere - WBGU

190 E Diversity of landscapes and ecosystems
support for the tourism industry in the drawing up of
a uniform environmental quality seal in Germany
will be the next focus of work.
Indicators: improve comparability
As yet there are no globally uniform definitions on
data collection and observation of developments in
tourism. In order to be able to record and compare
this all over the world, the relevant stipulations
issued by the UN Statistics Commission in 1993
should be adopted or harmonized with existing regulations.
In this context, the external environmental
costs induced by tourism should be entered on the
balance sheet as part of the national tourism statistics.The
United Nations World Tourism Organization
should be strengthened in its role (continuation and
updating guidelines, statistical surveys and monitoring
as well as global reporting). International nature
conservation NGOs (IUCN, WWF, etc) should also
be involved.
E 3.7.5
Investigating the limits of carrying capacity for
tourism
There is a great need for knowledge on regional carrying
capacity limits for tourism, especially with
respect to designating zones of specific intensity of
use. Studies should therefore be conducted into
whether carrying capacity limits can be determined
for individual natural landscapes on the basis of ‘disturbance
rates’ for animals and plants (Box E 3.7-1).
E 3.8
The role of sustainable urban development in
biosphere conservation
Settlements and, in particular, urban conglomerations
are particularly intensively used by people.
Under the aspect of sustainable land use geared
towards the protection of the biosphere they should
be assigned to the landscape use type ‘Conservation
despite use’ (Section E 3.4). The link between towns
and the biosphere can be seen in their reciprocal significance:
the quality of the biosphere has an important
function for towns, and at the same time towns
also perform functions for the conservation of the
biosphere. Towns have the greatest influence on the
biosphere through their high consumption of
resources and emission of pollutants, which also
makes them an important starting point for biosphere
policy.
E 3.8.1
The key role of towns and cities in sustainable
development
Towns play a key role with regard to global sustainable
development. 60 per cent of global GNP is produced
in towns, and corresponding quantities of
resources are consumed. In absolute figures, for
example, a European city with 1 million inhabitants
has an average daily consumption of 320,000 tonnes
water, 11,500 tonnes fossil fuels and 2,000 tonnes
food. By the same token, every day 1,600 tonnes
waste, 300,000 tonnes sewage and 1,500 tonnes air
pollution are produced (Forum Umwelt und
Entwicklung, 1996). The import and export of
resources and waste products brings additional pollution,
meaning that there is an externalization of
urban environmental problems which harm the biosphere.
In addition, towns are becoming ever more important
with regard to the social dimension of sustainable
development. Whereas 45 per cent of people in
the world lived in towns in 1995, in 2025 this figure
will probably be 61 per cent (WRI, 1996). At the
same time, urban unemployment, homelessness,
crime, social disparities and environmental pollution
will increase. Hence concepts for sustainable development
will have to prove themselves equal to these
issues. Approaches for a biosphere policy will therefore
have to aim at sustainable urban development.
This not only comprises the conservation and sustainable
use of the biosphere within towns, but also a
long-term change of urban processes and lifestyles.
To do this it is first of all necessary to describe the
special features of the urban ecosystem, especially
with regard to the differences from non-urban or biological
ecosystems (Table E 1.2-1).
E 3.8.2
Special features of urban ecosystems
There are causal and functional interactions between
the system elements of an ecosystem (Section E 1.1),
which determine the processes within an ecosystem
and, at the same time, demarcate it from other
ecosystems (‘functional ecosystem’). However,
ecosystems can also be demarcated from one another
on the basis of a naturally bounded, coherent space,
eg a lake or a forest (‘geographic ecosystem’). Due to
its significant fragmentation, a town is not a functional
ecosystem, but as an ecosystem complex and a
demarcated space it corresponds to a geographic
ecosystem (Trepl, 1994). Even if cities cannot be considered
as independent functional ecosystems, they