Mainstreaming of Biodiversity
Mainstreaming of biodiversity is becoming a critical issue receiving the attention of
both national and international ecological experts. A workshop was recently held in
Cape Town under the theme ‘Scientific Approaches towards Mainstreaming
Biodiversity in Production Landscapes’. The event was organised by the University
of Pretoria in collaboration with the Department of Environmental Affairs.The
workshop was well attended, attracting speakers from Africa, France, the United
States of America and also nationally. Opening the conference was the United
Nations (UN) Under-Secretary-General Achim Steiner, Executive Director of the
United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), who called for new, more sciencebased, targets.
The workshop focused on biodiversity conservation outside protected areas, as a
point of departure. ‘This is supposed to bring in all those who utilise the landscape,
into thinking about biodiversity in their actions, hence the 2009 theme Biodiversity
Mainstreaming’ says Bonani Madikizela, a Water Research Commission research
manager who participated in the workshop.
Ideas and lessons learnt out of the workshop were intended to form part of the
Diversitas programme, which convened its 2nd Open Science Conference on 13-16
October 2009 with 600 experts from around the world.
This workshop was a follow-up to the September 2004 international workshop which
was held under the theme ‘Mainstreaming Biodiversity in Production Landscapes
and Sectors’ which was co-hosted in Cape Town, South Africa, by the South African
National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI) and the Global Environment Facility (GEF).
Mainstreaming biodiversity was then defined as ‘Internalizing the goals of
biodiversity conservation and the sustainable use of biological resources into
economic sectors and development models, policies and programmes, and therefore
into all human behaviour’.
The world will miss its agreed target to stem biodiversity loss by next year, according
to the discussions held by experts who devoted their focus to biodiversity science.
‘We will certainly miss the target for reducing the rate of biodiversity loss by 2010
and therefore also miss the 2015 environmental targets within the UN Millennium
Development Goals to improve health and livelihoods for the world’s poorest and
most vulnerable people,’ says Georgina Mace, Vice-Chair of the international
Diversitas programme.
‘It is hard to image a more important priority than protecting the ecosystem services
underpinned by biodiversity,’ says Prof. Mace. ‘Biodiversity is fundamental to
humans having food, fuel, clean water and a habitable climate. Yet changes to
ecosystems and losses of biodiversity have continued to accelerate. Since 1992,
even the most conservative estimates agree that an area of tropical rainforest
greater than the size of California has been converted mostly for food and fuel.
Species extinction rates are at least 100 times those in pre-human times and are
expected to continue to increase’ she adds.
However, Mace goes on to say that ‘the situation is not hopeless’. According to
Mace: ‘There are many steps available that would help but we cannot dawdle.
Meaningful action should have started years ago. The next best time is now.’
‘A great deal of awareness-raising is still much needed with respect to the planetary
threat posed by the loss of so many species. The focus of biodiversity science today,
though, is evolving from describing problems to policy relevant problem solving,’
says Stanford University Prof. Hal Mooney, Diversitas Chair. ‘Experts are rising to
the immense challenge, developing interdisciplinary, science-based solutions to the
crisis while building new mechanisms to accelerate progress. Biodiversity scientists
are becoming more engaged in policy debates.’
Five roundtables between top science and policy specialists were scheduled on key
issues such as efforts to create a science-based global biodiversity observing
system (GEO-BON) to improve both coverage and consistency in observations at
ground level and via remote sensing.
It was agreed at the 6th Conference of Parties to the UN Convention on Biological
Diversity in April 2003. Some 123 world ministers committed to ‘achieve, by 2010, a
significant reduction of the current rate of biodiversity loss at the local, national and
regional levels, as a contribution to poverty alleviation and to the benefit of all life on
Earth.’
Achievements, opportunities and challenges
The rationale behind including or streamlining biodiversity into all landscape
developments is due to the fact that the space for biodiversity is ‘shrinking’ daily due
to: developments, such as agriculture and its associated landscape degradation and
impacts on water quality, industrial pollution leading to climate change; . the threat of
alien and invasive species; etc.
The payment for ecosystem services (PES) concept is becoming a buzzword in
research as it is perceived as the model to encourage farmers and communities,
especially from poor rural areas of the country, to participate in biodiversity
conservation and consider biodiversity in all their activities. ‘Grape farmers can, for
example, be audited on how best they integrate biodiversity in their farming activities,
as international standards and regular testing of compliance becomes critical’ says
Bonani Madikizela. ‘Another example is of the domestic farmers who often complain
about damage to their livestock and crops due to wild animals, such as jackals,
caracals, hippos, etc.’ he adds. ‘How can these farmers co-exist with wild animals
(as part of biodiversity) in view of their attack of domestic livestock?’ adds
Madikizela. ‘This remains a huge and a serious challenge, despite the accepted
meaningful role played by farmers (especially game farmers) in biodiversity
conservation’.
There are case studies in SA of successful communities who initiated and got seed
funding to run small-scale ecotourism, going to the extent of planting hundreds of
trees around wetlands, thereby preventing further degradation, and bringing back
indigenous species that attract tourists and benefit locals. These communities are
mainly in Mpumalanga and Kwa-Zulu Natal. The key challenges (out of many) are
the issues of land ownership (tenure), capacity to run the nature reserves (game
ranger expertise), sabotage by other community members, etc. A series of DVDs
was used to illustrate this and showed good factual capacity building efforts
conducted by Wildlands, funded by DEAT.
The challenge is limited financial resources, a huge risk to sustainability of
community-driven projects, especially in the initial phases. The discussions that
followed the presentations focused a lot on this. Suggestions were mainly around
creating awareness, and the ‘trialogue’ model (i.e. linking research with policy
developers/implementers, and socio-economic needs). Interesting concepts such as
eco-agriculture were raised by a US-California presenter via video conferencing,
mirrored in the contributions of other national/international speakers, where the shift
towards linking agriculture to biodiversity conservation and the value of tourism was
highlighted. The issue of institutional collaboration as a weak link was also
discussed.
The focus of the international workshop was more on terrestrial biodiversity than
aquatic. Madikizela says: ‘This is a huge oversight that the Water Research
Commission (WRC) raised and was appreciated by organizers. The concept of the
PES is equally important in encouraging all landscape users to play a role in
managing and caring for water resources. The WRC is likely to collaborate with the
Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism/South African National Biodiversity
Institute and Department of Water Affairs (DWA) through water pricing strategies and
further research on the applicability of the concept’. In support of involving
communities in water resource management partnerships, various initiatives, such
as ‘adopt a river catchment’ by DWA/WRC and collaboration between WRC and
DEAT on Indalo Yethu, are already underway.
The concept of the ‘Livelihood within Biodiversity’ was very central to the debates. ‘It
is very clear that there is continuing competition between biodiversity conservation
and food security in particular’ says Madikizela. ‘Other competitors include industry
and energy generation with clear impacts on biodiversity, if not mainstreamed’ he
adds.
Why is biodiversity mainstreaming so important?
According to the Diversitas Conference experts, massive mismanagement and
growing human needs for water are causing freshwater ecosystems to collapse,
making freshwater species the most threatened on earth, with extinction rates 4 to 6
times higher than their terrestrial and marine cousins.
According to Prof. Tockner, one of the Diversitas presenters, there is clear and
growing scientific evidence that we are on the verge of a major freshwater
biodiversity crisis. However, few are aware of the catastrophic decline in freshwater
biodiversity at both local and global scale. Threats to freshwater biodiversity have
now grown to a global scale.
The economic rationale for sustaining biodiversity and the pressing need to make
policymakers and the public more aware of how we all depend on biodiversity for
survival and well-being were key themes of the opening session at the 2009
Diversitas Open Science Conference.
‘We need to bring biodiversity into focus and understand the connections between
what is happening on our planet and society at large,’ said Achim Steiner, Executive
Director of UNEP. ‘Investing in the ecological infrastructure of this planet is as
important as building schools, roads, hospitals and houses. It will cost a lot more in
future if we don’t act now,’ he explained. ‘Forests, for example, are important
ecosystems that provide valuable services to the planet through its ability to capture
and store carbon. Nature has perfected carbon capturing and storage over millions
of years. We must use this as an instrument to combat climate change.’
Several speakers called on the scientific community to tackle biodiversity with a
sense of urgency. ‘Scientists have to be the provocateurs as well as the solution
providers,’ said Professor Hal Mooney of Stanford University and chair of the
Diversitas scientific committee. He emphasised that biodiversity is not about a few
endangered species, but rather about the building blocks of life that sustain all
earth’s ecosystems that provide us with water, food, fuel, clean air, etc. Mooney
called for workable solutions that will move away from conflict between conservation
and development, and that will allow competing needs to be met.
Several speakers echoed the need for greater public engagement, explaining that
everyone has the right to be aware of the consequences of our actions for the planet.
‘No one will be immune to biodiversity loss,’ said Dr David Cooper of the Convention
on Biological Diversity. As in the case of climate change, public pressure can be a
powerful catalyst for the political will to tackle biodiversity challenges. Dr Cooper and
other speakers referred to the upcoming International Year of Biodiversity in 2010.
They urged the audience to use this platform to get biodiversity on the public agenda
and harness widespread support for action.
Several discussions also called for support for plans to establish an intergovernmental process to engage governments in biodiversity. It is hoped that an
Inter-governmental Panel on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) will be
sanctioned during 2010. This will provide a global, credible platform for scientists to
raise issues and present challenges and solutions. This body will act as a ‘radar and
driver’ for biodiversity in the future. ‘It will be like a dream come true, but it will also
challenge scientists to become much better at conveying science to policymakers,’
said Dr Anne Larigauderie, Executive Director of Diversitas.