According to a landmark United Nations study, says Mahmoud Bakr, the future of the world hangs on controlling environmental degradation "We think of the environment as a grant that has no value," lamented Mustafa Tolba, world famous Egyptian environmentalist and head of the International Centre for Environment and Development. "So we use up our eco-system without the least consideration for the consequences -- we live beyond our means. And if such myopia goes on," he warned, "we will completely ruin our habitat." Tolba spoke in the course of a workshop held under the auspices of Egyptian Minister of the Environment Maged George and organised by the Arab Media Forum for the Environment and Development (AMFED) in collaboration with the Board of the Millennium Eco-system Assessment, the International Institute for Natural Resources and the United Nations Development Programme in an attempt to respond to the UN Millennium Eco-system Assessment report, released last month following four years of painstaking research that pooled the efforts of some 1,400 experts from 95 countries. Though as yet contestable, according to the authors themselves, the evidence is profoundly alarming: "Approximately 60 per cent of eco- system services that support life on earth -- fresh water, capture fisheries, air, water and regional climate regulation, natural hazard and pest control -- are being degraded or used unsustainably." Nor are the consequences to be ignored: "the ongoing degradation of 15 out of the 24 eco- system services examined is increasing the likelihood of abrupt changes that will seriously undermine human well-being. This includes new diseases, changes in water quality, 'dead zones' along the coasts and shifts in regional climate". The report also draws the connection between environmental degradation and the ability of the global community to deal with poverty, hunger and disease: our eco-systems turn out to be the cornerstone of sustainable development and the fulfilment of the Millennium Development Goals world leaders promised at the 2000 UN General Assembly. In the words of UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan "the report illustrates with alarming clarity that human activities are causing environmental damage on a massive scale throughout the world, and how biodiversity -- the very basis for life on earth -- is declining at an alarming rate." Indeed in the last 50 years the drive to keep up with rising demand for water, wood, energy and other resources has effected unprecedented changes in the environment; and, with some 10 to 30 per cent of the world's mammals, birds and fish already extinct, damage to global biodiversity will clearly be irreversible. The report also indicates that development has always taken place at the expense of the environment, with devastating long-term effects on the quality of life: over the last 25 years, for example, deforestation has resulted in an increase in the instance of malaria; here as elsewhere the consequences of environmental degradation are at their worst among the poor and dispossessed -- in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Specifically in relation to Egypt and the Arab world, specialists at the workshop stressed population explosion and poverty, recommending "drastic measures" to reduce degradation. According to Adel Farid Abdel- Qader, regional coordinator of the Early Warning System and Environment Evaluation Management in West Asia, "an Arab study of the assessment -- to be completed by the end of 2006 -- will pave the way to approving a comprehensive environmental assessment system on the local as well as the international level -- as a step towards pooling regional efforts and providing decision-makers with the necessary background". The Millennium Programme is currently underway in Montaza Assir in Saudi Arabia, Sinai in Egypt and the Tavelat Oasis in Morocco. Yet Tolba feels this to be insufficient, arguing that, so long as economists fail to place a value on services that cannot be marketed -- "clean air, clean water or the role of a tree in preserving fertile soil" -- the problem will persist. It is this failure, he says, that resulted in the world consuming more of its resources in the last 50 years than it had since the dawn of humanity -- among the report's more disturbing findings. For his part Annan declared that while the Millennium Assessment report is grim, "it also tells us how we can change course. It sets out common sense strategies for protecting species and habitats, and preserving this natural capital for development... and it fills a global knowledge gap. Only by understanding the environment and how it works can we make the necessary decisions to protect it. Only by valuing all our precious natural and human resources can we hope to build a sustainable future". World leaders plan on reducing the rate of biological diversity by 2010, vowing to achieve the Millennium Development Goals by 2015. But time slips by and the damage continues. "There are very difficult decisions that have not yet been taken," Tolba insisted. "Economists and world leaders are still thinking in the traditional developmental terms that landed us in the current situation in the first place -- they will never lead to sustainable development or live up to our responsibility for the future."
