Interim Report - TEEB

arable land (FAO 2006). Extending agricultural production
will have consequences for biodiversity and ecosystem
services as more land is converted for food production. The
expanding livestock sector will be in direct competition with
humans for land, water and other natural resources.
Livestock production is the largest sectoral source of water
pollutants. It is also a major factor in rising deforestation:
70% of land in the Amazon that was previously forested is
now used as pasture, and livestock feed crops cover a large
part of the remainder (FAO 2006).
CLIMATE CHANGE AND BIODIVERSITY
Climate change is linked to many of the issues we have
presented in this chapter. The El Niño-La Niña cycle in
the Pacific Ocean is one prominent example of the
vulnerability of biodiversity to climate. A small rise in
the sea surface temperature in 1976 and 1998 led to a
series of worldwide phenomena, which resulted in
1998 being characterized as “the year the world caught
fire”. Permanent damage includes (US Department of
Commerce 2008):
• burned forests that will not recover within any
meaningful human timescale;
• a rise in the temperature of surface waters of the central
western Pacific Ocean from an average of 19°C to
25°C;
• shifts toward heat-tolerant species living inside corals;
• a northward shift in the jet stream.
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These types of complex phenomena show us how vulnerable
we are to tipping points beyond those linked directly
to increasing temperatures and carbon dioxide levels.
Biodiversity losses can also contribute to climate change in
many complex ways. There are many examples of how
overharvesting or changed land-use patterns have triggered
social and economic changes leading to greater reliance
on carbon.
Draining peat lands results in carbon losses. But predicted
changes to climate could cause accelerated rates of carbon
release from the soil, contributing in turn to higher greenhouse
gas concentrations in the atmosphere (Bellamy et al.
2005). Under the same climatic conditions, grassland and
forests tend to have higher stocks of organic carbon than
arable land and are seen as net sinks for carbon. Yet deforestation
and intensification of cropland areas are rampant.
To take account of these complexities we will need more than
energy-based econometric models. We will need to respond
to knowledge about how to adapt and how vulnerabilities
might arise from global ecological processes. This will
require a much deeper dialogue than we have seen so
far between economists, climate scientists and ecologists.
IMPACTS ON THE POOR
A striking aspect of the consequences of biodiversity
loss is their disproportionate but unrecognized impact
on the poor. For instance, if climate change resulted in a
drought that halved the income of the poorest of the 28
million Ethiopians, this would barely register on the global
balance sheet – world GDP would fall by less than 0.003%.
The distributional challenge is particularly difficult because
those who have largely caused the problems – the rich
countries – are not going to suffer the most, at least not in the
short term.
The evidence is clear. The consequences of biodiversity loss
and ecosystem service degradation – from water to food to
fish – are not being shared equitably across the world. The
areas of richest biodiversity and ecosystem services are in
developing countries where they are relied upon by billions of
people to meet their basic needs. Yet subsistence farmers,
fishermen, the rural poor and traditional societies face
the most serious risks from degradation. This imbalance
is likely to grow. Estimates of the global environmental costs
in six major categories, from climate change to overfishing,
show that the costs arise overwhelmingly in high- and
middle-income countries and are borne by low-income
countries (Srinivasan et al. 2007).
Box 2.3: Gender, poverty and biodiversity in
Orissa, India
The impact of the loss of biodiversity, often not very
visible, has serious implications for poverty reduction
and well-being for women as it severely affects the
role of women as forest gatherers. Studies in the
tribal regions of Orissa and Chattisgarh, states in
India which were once heavily forested, have
recorded how deforestation has resulted in loss of
livelihoods, in women having to walk four times the
distance to collect forest produce and in their
inability to access medicinal herbs which have been
depleted. This loss reduces income, increases
drudgery and affects physical health. There is also
evidence to show that the relative status of women
within the family is higher in well-forested villages,
where their contribution to the household income is
greater than in villages that lack natural resources.
Sarojini Thakur, Head of Gender Section,
Commonwealth Secretariat, personal communication, May 15th 2008.
20 The economics of ecosystems and biodiversity