Conservation and Sustainable Use of the Biosphere - WBGU

I 2
Elements of a global biosphere policy
I 2.1
Tasks and issues
The call for a global policy of sustainable use and
conservation of the biosphere rests, in accordance
with the Council’s reasoning, up to this point on two
foundations:
1. For this type of policy, moral and ethical principles
are asserted which attribute an intrinsic value to
the biosphere and thus concede it an existential
right of its own (Chapter H).
2. We point out that the loss of biological diversity
and the reduction of biosphere services constitute
a serious restriction of the future viable path of
development for society and therefore, in particular
with a view to future generations, also the risk
of long-term loss of societal prosperity (Chapters
C–F).
Preventing such welfare losses requires first of all
that global and spatial conservation goals are established,
on the basis of which differentiated protective
measures and sustainable forms of use may be developed.
It must be the aim of these endeavours to prevent
humankind from triggering the eradication of
species. To that extent it is necessary to establish a
pragmatic and gradual biosphere policy that combines
government and international control with a
decentralized system of incentives to create a comprehensive
strategy of sustainability for the biosphere.
Various specific challenges present themselves in
connection with designing this sort of global biosphere
policy– by contrast to many areas of action in
the area of environmental and resource conservation
policy:
• Biological diversity, in its three components –
ecosystems, species and genetic variability – is an
unusually complex asset and object of protection.
• There is a considerable problem of uncertainty and
knowledge with regard to target models and the
measures and implementation routes to be taken.
• There are particular difficulties in developing a
quantified appraisal of biological diversity.
• A global biosphere policy calls for the adequate
consideration of temporal, spatial, geographic and
social allocation conflicts and for the optimum
spatial level of action to be established.
• Global biosphere policy is inconceivable without
the fundamental willingness to participate and
cooperate on the part of the various private and
public players at local, national and international
level.
I 2.1.1
Overcoming the knowledge deficit
A central hindrance to the establishment of conservation
strategies for biological diversity are the serious
knowledge deficits that still exist and which
relate to biological and biogeochemical contexts, in
particular the causes, scale and consequences of a
loss of biodiversity and the impact of human actions
(Becker-Soest, 1998a, b; Chapters D–F and J).Above
all, there are limits to answer the fundamental question
of how much nature humankind needs in the
long term to survive. In that respect, the derivation of
clearly definable global and regional guard rails
(bioregional level) is highly problematic (Sections
E 3.9 and I 1). So biosphere policy must still operate
without knowledge of the precise mechanisms of the
biosphere dynamic, and political action must take
place in a context of gross uncertainty. For this reason,
the Council talks about ‘biological imperatives’
instead of quantifiable guard rails.
These five identified imperatives (Section I 1)
should in the view of the Council, however, be given
particular consideration and therefore form the subject
of a global biosphere policy. These policy fields
are not sufficient to be able to provide a comprehensive
explanation of the importance of biodiversity
(Chapter H), but they do point to areas on which
global biosphere policy might focus:
• Preserving the integrity of bioregions.
• Safeguarding existing biological resources.
• Maintaining biopotential for the future.
• Preserving the global natural heritage.