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… AND YET, THERE IS HOPE
FROM A CENTURY OF LOSS TO A CENTURY OF ENVIRONMENTAL GAINS

Message to the media from Maritta R. von Bieberstein Koch-Weser,
Director General of The World Conservation Union - IUCN

This is the turn of the century. Time to look back. Time to look forward. Mankind has taken a gigantic technological step, but in many ways the 20th century has been a century of tremendous loss. The wars, social inequities and environmental devastation of the 20th century belong among the darkest pages in the history of humankind.

Throughout the world, we have witnessed the loss of biological diversity at an unprecedented and ever accelerating rate.

The irony is that while we have learned to value biological diversity and have made enormous scientific advances in exploring its potential, we continue to lose species at a faster rate than ever. The international Conventions have not yet changed the situation on the ground. The current rate of species' extinction is believed to exceed the one the earth experienced before the onset of the human era -- during the extinction episode of 70 million years ago when dinosaurs disappeared. It is now estimated that more than 20 000 species are lost every year, and that this loss is between 1 000 and 10 000 times greater than it would naturally be.

We all know the driving forces: poverty, wealth and greed, and ever growing population pressures. Just read the papers this week about the terrible calamity that has struck Venezuela. Behold how poor people suffer from environmental degradation - they have no choice but to live on marginal land and in squalid urban slums. And when the heavy rains come, they lose their livelihoods and their very lives in floods and mudslides, swept away from hills that were once safeguarded by protective vegetation.

World-wide, 80% of the earth's original forest cover has been cleared, fragmented or otherwise damaged. Over the last 20 years, an area of mainly tropical forests as large as six times the size of France has been converted to other land use. In addition, fire and ecosystem degradation have decimated the earth's forests, from Russia, to China, to Southeast Asia and Latin America.

Some 80% of the world's population will live in developing countries by 2025, 50% of them in urban areas located mainly in coastal regions and near rivers. The decline of many freshwater and related ecosystems will have direct, large-scale social and economic repercussions.

But wealth and perverse economic incentives are the major drivers of environmental transformation and destruction. Without large landclearing equipment, mechanized agricultural endeavours, modern fishing gear, urban industrial concentrations, and large infrastructure development, the rapid depletion of our planet would not have been possible. Environmental destruction is capital intensive, while environmental protection receives only a small amount of charity-type assistance.

We have the technical and administrative tools to do better.

The 21st century must be different. Sincerity about sustainable development must finally set in. More ethical, noble human behaviour - altruism of present generations to the benefit of future ones - is what we must achieve. We have gone too far in our belief that the market is the all-encompassing mechanism that could lead to sustainable development. Markets may be the right way of valuing replaceable, recoverable, reproducible goods. They are a totally inappropriate method when we consider the protection needs of the one-time singular endowment of earth, the only planet we have.

Some of the responsibility for bringing about a different, more differentiating outlook rests with the media. Together, we must work and document the ample evidence supporting IUCN's 5-point message for the next millenium:

1. People can turn around species' extinction.

2. Protection of nature is a continuous, ongoing task. Temporary projects are not enough.

3. To preserve nature, economics should be a tool, not a master.

4. "Mainstreaming environment" needs to replace charity-type projects.

5. Global stewardship of the earth requires management-by-ecosystem.

We have only one planet, one environmental endowment.


Maritta R. von Bieberstein Koch-Weser,
Director General of the World Conservation Union - IUCN

22 December 1999

THE WORLD CONSERVATION UNION - IUCN

The World Conservation Union - IUCN was created in 1948. It is the world's largest conservation-related organisation, bringing together 76 states, 111 government agencies, 732 NGOs, and some 10,000 scientists and experts from 181 countries in a unique world partnership. Over the last half century, IUCN has provided a forum for decisions on equity and ecological sustainability, helped over 50 countries to launch National Conservation Strategies, and contributed to the drafting and implementation of several global environmental conventions. Through its world-wide secretariat, comprising offices in 42 countries, IUCN manages a wide range of programmes linking local action with global initiatives.

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