APPENDIX 7
Memorandum by WWF-UK
SUMMARY
The findings of the Millennium Ecosystems Assessment
(MA) have not been used effectively for decision making in the
UK or internationally. The two main reasons for this are that:
— the MA has not been given the political
importance internationally that its very urgent findings and recommendations
warrant; and
— the very technical MA has never effectively
been translated into clear policy guidance for political decision
makers or practical application.
There is a clear need for the MA to be made
relevant to UK policy. There is a need for the UK Government to
accept responsibility for the global impacts of the UK's consumption
(as detailed in the Living Planet Report 2006). WWF recommends
that:
— the MA recommendations are more fully
and explicitly integrated into the UK Sustainable Development
Strategy (UKSDS), and that the Sustainable Development Commission
(SDC) is given greater powers to oversee the implementation of
the SDS across Government; and
— all levels of the UK Government (both
national and local) accept responsibility for the global impact
of the UK's consumption and, therefore, move towards "One
Planet Living". Key steps include adopting ecological footprint
as an indicator and supporting the use of REAP, a software tool
which helps government at all levels, plan for sustainability
and test the environmental impacts of proposed policy.
Internationally, the status of the MA must be
raised as a matter of urgency. There is a need for direct action
on applying the MA in international processes. For example the
MA could:
— be used in the UN reform process
to input into any changes to the United Nations Environment Programme
(UNEP);
— assist with commitments through the
Bali Strategic plan;
— be used as part of the basis for
a version of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
for biodiversity to inform policy making; and
— EC and EU Member States should consider
how to take the MA recommendations forward in terms of changes
in policies, institutions and practices.
Degradation of the ecosystem is one of the major
global challenges facing the world and is closely interconnected
with other global challenges, including global poverty, climate
change, governance and conflict. These challenges are closely
intertwined and cannot be viewed in isolation. Therefore, WWF
recommends that strategies to address ecosystem services, must
be addressed along side the other global challenges. The implications
of the MA on the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals
(MDGs), for example, has to be acknowledged, and action to support
natural resource management as part of poverty reduction strategies
must be recognised.
INTRODUCTION
WWF welcomes the opportunity to submit to this
inquiry on the Millennium Ecosystem Report (MA). WWF works with
government, business and communities in more than 90 countries
around the world. Our mission is to stop the degradation of the
planet's environment and to build a future in which humans live
in harmony with nature.
Every two years WWF produces the Living Planet
Report. [7]The
Living Planet Report presents figures on loss of biodiversity
against figures on human consumption of natural resources. The
graphs below, taken from the 2004 report, illustrate the significant
decline in the planet's biodiversity since 1970 and reveals that
humanity's impact on the planet's environment has concurrently
increased to unsustainable and ever-increasing levels.
This report leaves us in no doubt about the
impact of human activity on biodiversity and the "health"
of the planet. Globally we are already consuming more natural
resources than the planet can produce sustainably, and creating
more pollution than it can absorb. The report shows that if everyone
in the world lived as we do in the UK, we would need three planets
to support us.
We in the UK are using and polluting far more
than our fair share, jeopardising the ability of others in the
world to meet their own and future generations' needs. Very much
in line with the findings of the MA, the Living Planet Report
shows that we are already seeing the consequences of our impact
on the natural systems on which we depend. The focus of WWF-UK's
work is to move towards "One Planet Living", that is
all people living and enjoying happy, healthy lives within their
fair share of the Earth's resources.
INFLUENCE OF
THE MA
Question 1. How successful has the MA been
in influencing decision making at UK, EU and international levels?
How can we encourage adoption of the MA response options in countries
that have been slow to do so such as the US, Brazil and India?
It is WWF's view that the Millennium Ecosystem
Assessment has not been given sufficient political support internationally
to allow it to influence decision making at the national or international
level. There has been very limited reference to the MA at international
meetings, including the New York World Summit in September 2005,
where there was no reference to the MA in the final outcome document.
A commissioned assessment of the impact of the
MA (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment Survey of Initial Impacts,
Walter Reid, March 2006) gives a very mixed picture of the adoption
of the MA findings in the first year since it was released. It
states that the first year assessment:
"provides widespread evidence that the
assessment is having an impact on the intended audiences, but
the extent of that impact is very mixed, with some institutions,
regions, countries, and sectors significantly influenced by the
MA while others have not been influenced at all".
See Annex 1 for summary of findings.
Details in this assessment indicate that in
the UK the MA has had little direct influence on policy at either
DEFRA or DFID, though, there is some evidence that it has been
discussed in broad terms in both departments.
What is clear is that it has been considered
in the conservation and biodiversity sectors, but is yet to make
an impact on wider national or international decision making.
It is WWF's belief that the MA has to be made relevant not just
directly in decisions associated with planning of natural resources,
but also to ongoing national and international economic development.
There has to be direct correlation between growth in economic
activity and consumption of ecosystem services and the conservation
of ecosystems. It is notable that the MA has had almost no impact
on business or the Bretton Woods institutions, and, unfortunately,
on development focused NGOs.
Greenfacts, an organisation which aims to summarise
scientific papers in layman's terms, has put together what is
supposed to be a public outreach initiative and user friendly
fact sheet on the MA. There is a question, however, of whether
awareness of their existence and availability is widespread.
Recommendation: There is an urgent need
to translate the somewhat technical report into a powerful publicly
accessible format aimed at policy makers, NGOs and multilateral
decision makers. In particular, it is essential to make the findings
of the MA relevant to, and input into, wider objectives on economic
development and poverty reduction activities.
UK USE OF
THE MA
Question 2. To what extent have MA findings
and processes been incorporated into UK departments? How aware
are departments of the importance of the MA? What steps are being
taken to ensure that the findings of the MA are being considered
and, where relevant, acted upon in the departments? Is there any
evidence of real change in government as an outcome of the MA?
Question 3. How has
the MA been used to ensure that there is adequate policy coherence,
placing adequate weight on non-financial impacts and environmental
limits in policies? Are the issues raised in the MA adequately
addressed by UK policy appraisal through Regulatory Impact Assessments?
Can departments document examples where the MA has resulted in
a change in the preferred policy option to one which is more sustainable?
The main tool for addressing ecosystem services
in the UK is the UK Sustainable Development Strategy. This cuts
across Government departments, and requires reporting against
sustainable development indicators. While the UKSDS monitors a
number of indicators relevant to the MA, it does not explicitly
take the MA into consideration (the UKSDS and the MA were launched
at around the same time, so the MA was not available at the time
of producing the UKSDS). However, the UKSDS should be reviewed
in light of the MA recommendations, and be made to report against
the MA on key ecosystem services for the UK.
Again, WWF believe that, in addition to monitoring
the impact on ecosystems and ecosystem assessment, there is a
need for all levels of UK government (both national and local)
to accept responsibility for the global impact of the UK's consumption
and, therefore, move towards "One Planet Living". There
is a need to put in place indicators such as ecological footprint,
policies, practice and tools which support a move towards One
Planet Living.
The UK has tremendous potential to take significant
steps towards "One Planet Living"[8]
in the next few years. The bottom line is that we need to stabilise
our ecological footprint by 2012 and then start to reduce the
UK's ecological footprint to within our fair share.
Together with the Stockholm Environment Institute,
the Centre for Urban and Regional Ecology (CURE) and BiffAward,
WWF has developed the first complete picture of the UK's resource
use and environmental impact. The project, known as the Ecological
Budget,[9]
measured for the first time the UK's global—carbon dioxide
emissions, materials flow and ecological footprint. A powerful
software tool called the Resource and Energy Analysis Programme
(REAP) has been developed which now gives decision-makers at all
levels of government the ability to plan for sustainability and
test the environmental impacts of proposed policy. WWF is supporting
UK governments to take up this tool in order to deliver One Planet
Living strategies to reduce our ecological footprint.
Recommendation: The UK Government should develop
and give increased power to the Sustainable Development Commission,
who oversee the implementation of the UK Sustainable Development
Strategy, to allow for the implementation and monitoring of the
MA recommendations.
Recommendation: the UK Government should adopt
Ecological Footprint as an indicator to track the UK's efforts
to move towards One Planet Living.
Recommendation: the UK national and local governments
should use REAP to plan and test policy for One Planet Living.
UK EXTERNAL IMPACTS
Question 4. Should the UK develop its own
assessment report and would it be relevant to include external
UK impacts?
As mentioned, WWF believes that the UK should
use ecological footprinting to assess its global impact.
It is essential to include the external impacts
of the UK activities otherwise an incomplete picture of the UK's
total environmental impact will be reached. In addition, there
should be more coherent policy across government in applying the
MA recommendations. The examples below illustrate areas where
WWF is working to address the full impact of the UK's consumption
and footprint and the clear necessity for incorporating this into
policy:
— Illegal logging: More than 70% of
the wood consumed in the UK is derived from imports. Procurement
by local authorities alone is believed to account for as much
as a quarter of the total amount of timber the UK consumes. WWF
has estimated that up to 26% of the UK's imports from six key
regions could be illegal and that the UK is estimated to be the
greatest importer of illegal timber in the EU.
— Virtual Water: The imported food
we eat has significant impacts on fresh water resources in developing
countries ("virtual water"). For example, one cup of
coffee requires 140 litres of fresh water to produce, and one
hamburger requires 2,400 litres of water. Water extracted for
intensive farming has implications for access to water for small
scale farming and domestic use in developing countries where water
access is already scarce.
— UK Export Credit Guarantee Department
(ECGD): The ECGD has provided billions of pounds of secured finance
to carbon intensive industry sectors, such as aircraft, power
generation and hydrocarbon extraction. The ECGD is currently considering
increasing its footprint by investing in Shell's $20 billion Sakhalin
II project in Russia, which will emit 1.6 million tonnes of carbon
dioxide in its life time, equivalent to three years of UK national
emissions. In addition Sakhalin II will significantly disrupt
marine life in the area.
INTERNATIONAL APPLICATION
OF THE
MA
Question 5. How have international institutions
adopted the findings and processes of the MA? Why has the World
Bank been slow to respond to the MA? How should the findings of
the MA be incorporated into the World Bank's work?
Question 6. Are NGOs
acting on the MA's recommendations, particularly those involved
in development and poverty reduction?
Question 7. How has business risen to the
challenges identified in the MA? Has the MA been used in strategic
business planning?
Question 8. How useful
was the MA in addressing the assessment needs of a number of Multilateral
Environmental Agreements such as the Convention on Biological
Diversity?
Question 9. Were there any gaps or weaknesses
in the MA? How should the MA be followed up? Are the mechanisms
and expertise which were developed to create the MA now being
lost due to a lack of confirmation of a formal follow up procedure?
WWF are actively using the MA, both as a fundamental
aspect of our programme work, and as a central tool in our international
policy work and lobbying. For example, the MA has been used in
our lobbying on investments through the 10th European Development
Fund, for a new thematic programme on environment and sustainable
use of natural resources under external actions, and in the revision
of the EU Sustainable Development Strategy 2006.
There are a number of international processes
which require direct application of the MA, and would require
UK Government support.
Recommendations: WWF recommendations for international
application include:
— MA could be used in the UN reform
process to give input to UNEP on the technical and scientific
side.
— It can also assist with commitments
through the Bali Strategic plan and requests from developing countries
for more and better information through the Bali plan.
— It can be used as part of the basis
for an IPCC version for biodiversity to inform policy making.
— EC and EU Member States should consider
how to take the MA recommendations forward in terms of changes
in policies, institutions and practices that would mitigate some
of the negative consequences of pressures on ecosystems. For example,
promoting good governance and sustainable management of natural
resources and ecosystem services through development cooperation
assistance in partner countries and the active participation in
decision making of civil society in those countries. Or, for example,
supporting the development and monitoring of indicators related
to the contribution of ecosystem goods and services to poverty
reduction.
There are a number of global challenges facing
the world today, such as poverty and inequality, over-consumption
in the north, biodiversity loss, climate change, security, population
and resource scarcity. Degradation of the ecosystem is one of
the major global challenges. These challenges are closely interconnected
and cannot be viewed in isolation.
WWF, therefore, recommends that strategies to
address ecosystem services, must be addressed along side the other
global challenges. The implications of the MA on the achievement
of the Millennium Development Goals, for example, has to be acknowledged,
and action to support natural resource management as part of poverty
reduction strategies must be recognised. This has been detailed
in a recent briefing by the International Institute for Environment
and Development (IIED).[10]
Recommendation: Specifically there is a
need to more closely align the MA and the Millennium Development
Goals (in line with the IIED recommendations).
Recommendation: Finally, it is to be noted
that a glaring omission from the MA is that it does not consider
energy resources. As a key natural resource for economic development,
ecosystem services supplying energy services must be included
in future development of the MA.
October 2006
7 Living Planet Report 2006 is due out on 24 October
2006. Back
8
www.wwf.org.uk/oneplanetliving Back
9
www.ecologicalbudget.org.uk Back
10
Environment for the MDGs: An IIED Briefing, "Making poverty
reduction irreversible: development implications of the Millennium
Ecosystem Assessment", Steve Bass, IIED, 2006. Back
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