Nature's Loss to Hurt Global Poor
From BBC news site: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7424535.stm
Excerpt from article by Richard Black
Environment correspondent, BBC News website
Damage to forests, rivers, marine life and other aspects of nature could halve living standards for the world's poor, a major report has concluded.
Current rates of natural decline might reduce global GDP by about 7% by 2050. [This seems too conservative to me. CG]
The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) review is modelled on the Stern Review of climate change. It will be released at the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) meeting in Bonn, where 60 leaders have pledged to halt deforestation by 2020. [http://www.cbd.int/]
"You come up with answers like 6% or 8% of global GDP when you think about the benefits of intact ecosystems, for example in controlling water, controlling floods and droughts, the flow of nutrients from forest to field," said the project's leader Pavan Sukhdev.
"But then you realise that the major beneficiaries [of nature] are the billion and a half of the world's poor; these natural systems account for as much as 40%-50% of what we define as the 'GDP of the poor'," he told BBC News.
Excerpt from article by Richard Black
Environment correspondent, BBC News website
Damage to forests, rivers, marine life and other aspects of nature could halve living standards for the world's poor, a major report has concluded.
Current rates of natural decline might reduce global GDP by about 7% by 2050. [This seems too conservative to me. CG]
The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) review is modelled on the Stern Review of climate change. It will be released at the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) meeting in Bonn, where 60 leaders have pledged to halt deforestation by 2020. [http://www.cbd.int/]
"You come up with answers like 6% or 8% of global GDP when you think about the benefits of intact ecosystems, for example in controlling water, controlling floods and droughts, the flow of nutrients from forest to field," said the project's leader Pavan Sukhdev.
"But then you realise that the major beneficiaries [of nature] are the billion and a half of the world's poor; these natural systems account for as much as 40%-50% of what we define as the 'GDP of the poor'," he told BBC News.
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