How can we enhance the well-being and security of all people and boost social and economic development while sustaining the Earth’s biodiversity and life support systems?
How do we feed a growing human population, sustain fresh water supplies and maintain biodiversity against a background of climate change and declining ecosystems and natural resources?
These are some of the greatest challenges of our time. Human well-being starts with sufficient income or resources to obtain adequate food and shelter, but also includes security, health, social acceptance, access to opportunities and freedom of choice. Poverty means lacking some or all of these aspects.
Almost half of the world’s population - 2.6 billion people - lives on US$2 a day or less and one billion of them on US$1 a day or less. Three quarters of the poorest families live in rural areas and depend on natural resources for their daily existence. Where opportunities or rights are limited, people and their livelihoods are increasingly vulnerable in the face of climate change, population growth and declining natural resources.
In the last 50 years we have successfully used and transformed ecosystems to bring about considerable gains for human well-being and economic development. However, not all regions and people have benefited equally, and the costs of these gains are borne disproportionately by the poor.
The Earth’s ecosystems continue to provide life sustaining services and valuable products. But the natural resource bank is gradually being drawn down toward bankruptcy and becoming less able to support human life: 60% of key ecosystem services are being degraded or used unsustainably. As a result, we are already witnessing food and water insecurity; increased vulnerability to hazards like droughts and floods, health problems, dwindling fuel supplies, climate change, conflict over limited resources, poverty, social inequities and forced migrations.
We can no longer take nature’s goods and services for granted. The degradation of ecosystems and failure to account for their vital services is jeopardizing economic development goals, people’s livelihoods and human well-being. The challenges we face are urgent. Concerted and collaborative action is required.