The Future of Sustainability: Have Your Say!

Week One - “Global Challenges to Sustainability in the Twenty-First Century”

Statement from Mr. Jeffrey McNeely, Chief Scientist, The World Conservation Union

Global Challenges to Sustainability in the Twenty-First Century: science and technology to mobilize people for conservation.

If the 20th century can be taken as a guide, we can reasonably expect the 21st century to pose even greater challenges to the environment. But further developments in science and technology can help people convert future challenges into opportunities, if mobilized in the cause of sustainability.

The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, a four-year global research effort by over 1300 scientists, found that 60% of the ecosystem services assessed were being degraded. Worse, the four scenarios prepared by the MA all pointed to continuing loss of biodiversity. The 2006 IUCN Red List is a minimum estimate of extinction threat, as only a relatively modest number of species have been carefully assessed; but even so, some 12% of birds, 24% of mammals and 33% of amphibians are threatened. Reversing these trends requires us to understand what is happening to ecosystems, why ecosystems are under pressure, and what we can do about it.

First, the UN projects the human population to reach a peak of around 9 billion or so by around 2030, and then start to decline, bringing the new challenges of an ageing population in addition to growing enough food to fill 3 billion additional stomachs.

Agriculture will need to undergo a radical transformation if it is to produce more food and biomass for energy without polluting the environment and destroying more natural habitats. Agriculture currently consumes at least ten times the energy it produces, and the globalization of agriculture has added significantly to the energy costs of transportation and storage. This makes the entire operation far less efficient than it must be for sustainability. While new technologies offer promises, they also carry hidden dangers that need to be carefully considered.

Even the most optimistic projections expect poverty to remain a constant challenge, especially in Africa, while many people continue to consume far more than their fair share of our planet’s productivity.

Despite the increasingly urgent warnings, such as Al Gore’s recent film and book, "An Inconvenient Truth", the climate is likely to continue changing, bringing numerous additional challenges to both society and ecosystems. Patterns of rainfall will modify the pattern of landscape productivity in ways that we cannot yet foresee, but are likely to require new adaptations. How can science and technology help this process?

Over the coming decades, we will need to make a fundamental shift from a petroleum-based economy to one based on other forms of energy. Biofuels are being highly promoted, but undoubtedly will have impacts on food production, biodiversity, and water consumption. How will we balance the multiple demands for using land to produce bioenergy or hydroelectricity as opposed to other uses that will provide more sustainable benefits to biodiversity?

Much as we would all like to see a peaceful 21st century, the odds are against it; and given the increasing sophistication of weapons of destruction, we can also expect the environment to suffer from collateral damage. Can conflict be channeled in more constructive directions?

This is a pretty depressing litany of woes, but it gets worse. Because of the way science works, contradictory and conflicting messages are often published, thereby stimulating productive debate but also running the risk of confusing the public about the key issues. Genetic modification, climate change, and nuclear power are dramatic examples of this challenge.

As William Adams says in his background paper, “the failure to understand and live within limits is the main reason why current patterns of development are not sustainable.” But although the concept of limits is central to the challenge of sustainability, it “is in many ways a political non-starter” because it is so threatening to the status quo.

Small wonder that many people tune out when they hear someone trying to build public support for environmental concerns.

Yet environmental challenges also provide us with opportunities. Many people care deeply about biodiversity, wildlife, and protected areas, and would enjoy a healthy environment with people living in balance with resources. IUCN would like to work with such people to make the world a better place for all.

1. Do you agree that these are the biggest challenges to sustainability that we will face in the coming decades? What are other major challenges?
2. What will be the key breakthroughs in conservation biology and environmental science in the 21st century that will help society address global challenges to sustainability?
3. How do we ensure that the key interest groups (ranging from business leaders to the rural poor) are involved in defining the priorities and applying the new advances in science and technology?
4. How can scientists formulate more positive messages – one that that carry a consensus of support for promising opportunities and can restore a sense of hope in the general public?

During this first week of the IUCN Future of Sustainability Discussion Forum, we are seeking to identify some of the most promising ways of addressing some of the challenges outlined above. Of course some of these solutions will be complex, but we need to provide sound-bite descriptions of those opportunities as a means of capturing public support and interest in the future of sustainability.

We look forward to hearing your views.