Harmony: A New Way of Looking at Our World - Tony Juniper

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seem to count for little in our ever more industrialized and urban societies. It seems that because of our mastery of science and technology we have convinced ourselves that we can somehow outflank Nature, to base all that we do on our technology and industry alone. Perhaps it is finally time to recognize what I have been saying now for a very long time: that changes to the climate and the destruction of Nature are not first and foremost environmental or ‘green’ issues: they are hard economic facts and matters that sit at the heart of how we ensure human wellbeing. For example, in relation to farming it should be a cause of great concern that we increasingly rely on ever more extreme forms of monoculture and have come to depend complacently upon a tiny handful of species to produce much of our food. In these circumstances it is evidently tempting for some to believe that we have successfully isolated ourselves from the need to conserve biodiversity. After all, according to the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization, only some twelve plant species provide about three-quarters of our food supply and only fifteen mammal and bird species supply more than 90 per cent of global livestock production. However, these statistics exclude the fact that the productivity of these few species relies on hundreds of thousands of others – to recycle nutrients, to enable pollination, convert atmospheric nitrogen, to produce rainfall, control pests and facilitate the transfer of nutrients between soils and plants. Without all this, our handful of domesticated animals and plants would be useless. We must realize that our food is produced by a whole system, not just isolated elements. Again, the impression that we have somehow bypassed Nature is just that, an impression; and what I desperately hope the world will wake up to is that it is a very dangerous one. The evidence available provides us with ample warning of the likely consequences of continuing to live out of balance with Nature, which is why I believe one of the most profound failures of our present way of thinking is seen in the realm of economics.

       Eco-nomics

      Almost every week my attention is drawn to a new report highlighting our dependence on one of the ecosystem services I have been describing, and to our continuing abuse of them. The recent collapse in bee populations in different parts of the world is a good example. These insects are vital for agriculture because they pollinate many of the plants that feed us, including beans and fruit trees. It is not clear yet why such a catastrophic decline is occurring, but, alongside disease epidemics, it seems that chemical pollution and intensive farming have possibly played an important role. It is perhaps difficult for us to see a bee as an essential worker in the functioning of the economy, but that is exactly what these insects are: components of economic stability and well-being. They are as important as any bank in the functioning of the financial world. These creatures, and millions of others too, maintain relationships and conduct transactions that are essential for our continued prosperity. Remove the bees and we are much poorer, perhaps even ruined – although, of course, there will be those who will say that some clever technology will be developed to take their place.

      I would say the same thing about the rapid depletion of marine fisheries, a trend that has long concerned me and a subject that I have worked hard to find solutions to. The colourful selections of fish laid out in supermarkets are the fruits of complex ecological processes that are now being severely disrupted by pollution and over-fishing. Soon they may also be victims of the increases in absorption of damaging concentrations of carbon dioxide from the air, as I have hinted. The result is less fish available for us to eat.

      The world’s fisheries are worth $80–100 billion. They are the main or only source of animal protein for about one billion people and the process of catching them employs about 27 million people worldwide. In 2002 fish catches peaked and it is estimated that today around 70 per cent of fish stocks are being fished unsustainably. Industrial marine fishing has already reduced the total mass of large predatory fish, such as tuna and cod, to only 10 per cent of what it was forty or fifty years ago. And it is not only albatross populations that suffer as a consequence. Dolphins, sea turtles and habitats like coral reefs are all at risk from over-fishing. Sea beds across the world have been smashed up by bottom-trawling gear. Again, I have had the opportunity to speak with many experts on this subject, and they warn of impending disaster.

      Even in the case of freshwater fisheries, which tend to be under better regulatory control, there is serious cause for concern. Pressures range from pollution to climate change and the way water is impounded using dams and diverted from rivers to irrigate farmland. And it is not only fisheries that are at risk from how we use and manage fresh water.

      In 2006 I was struck by the findings of the United Nations Development Programme’s Human Development Report on the way water is managed. This highlighted the disturbing fact that ancient, local, traditional approaches to water-harvesting are being rapidly abandoned as countries attempt to centralize and industrialize water resources. It described how, in many countries where new technology and new ideas are embraced in the rush towards modernization, the personal responsibility that individuals and entire communities once felt for maintaining their own water supply is also disappearing. This is interesting. It follows the general trend in modern thinking where rights become more important than responsibility. In the light of the failure of many large-scale modern attempts to centralize water management the report urged countries to think more about encouraging people to recognize their responsibility and to reinvigorate traditional approaches.

      There are plenty of other examples of what I see as flaws in our appreciation of our fundamental economic reliance on Nature, and I have seen how these are repeatedly highlighted by scientific bodies, as well as an increasing number of economists and governments. International treaties to protect species and ecosystems have been agreed. National laws have been passed and some companies have begun to look at their supply chains, so as to better understand their reliance on natural systems. All this is very positive, yet tangible benefits for ecosystems are in many cases yet to be seen, at least on the trend-reversing scale needed. Part of the challenge lies in how we have conceived our economic system and how so-called ‘market failures’ can lead to devastating impacts on Nature that in turn harm the economy.

      In recent years researchers have begun to look at the scale of this economic flaw and have reached some quite amazing conclusions. One study that made a big impression on me was completed in 1997. It was an investigation which set out to estimate how much, in financial terms, Nature is worth to us by calculating the cost of replacing the services it provides – if we possibly could. The seminal paper in question was produced by a research team led by Robert Costanza and was published in the leading journal Nature. It was called ‘the value of the world’s ecosystem services and natural capital’, and summarized research that set out to estimate the value of a wide range of ecosystem services, including wetlands and how they protect property from flooding, the insects that pollinate crops, the benefits provided by rain, and natural regeneration of soils – among a range of other services. The figure they arrived at suggested the annual value of Nature in bald, bottomline financial terms was then about $33 trillion. This, they said, was a minimum estimate.

      Honey bee pollinating flowers. These insects are not only a vital component in complex ecosystems, but also a vital part of the human economy. One recent study suggests that the retail value of agricultural products produced in the UK with the help of honey bees pollinating flowers is about ®1 billion per year. In parts of China where honey bees have disappeared farmers must pollinate fruit tree flowers by hand with feather dusters.

      What is perhaps more significant about this finding is how that figure was getting on for double global GDP at the time ($18 trillion). In other words, according to this calculation, the part of the economy that we measure, desperately try to grow and obsess about day after day in the Media is only about half as valuable financially as the part upon which we place almost no financial value at all andgive little attention to, and yet which is the ultimate source of all our wealth! The term ‘market failure’ hardly does justice to the scale and profundity of this oversight, but that is what it is: an economic failure of epic proportions.

      Shanghai, China.

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