The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment –
Implications for our Industry
A Plenary Presentation at the FIDIC 2005 Annual Conference
Beijing, China; 4-8 September 2005
J. M. Boyd, FIDIC / Golder Associates
Introduction
Dr Padilla, Chairman She, President Kell, Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen
As Dr Padilla has indicated, our original intent in this session was to have a presentation by
Professor Zakri, the Co-chair of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment on the work of that
organization. Unfortunately, last minute circumstances have made it impossible for Professor Zakri
to attend although he very kindly offered the use of his overheads.
Over the next 30 minutes I will attempt to provide some background information on the Millennium
Ecosystem Assessment (the MEA) to help your deliberations tomorrow. In addition, I will present
the rationale that prompted the inclusion of the MEA in our keynote addresses in the first place.
That should leave us with a little time for questions and answers.
I should point out that I am neither an expert on biological systems nor am I in any way connected
with the MEA and any interpretation or miss-interpretation of their materials is entirely my
responsibility. There is, however, some future relief for the possibility of my misrepresentation in
the form of Marcus Lee, a senior representative of the MEA who will be with us on Wednesday
morning, will make a brief presentation at that time, and will answer any more detailed questions
that you might have. I would urge you to review the MEA website at
www.millenniumassessment.org where their reports and presentation materials are readily available
The MEA – What is it?
The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA) is an international work program designed to
provide a scientific basis for decision makers responding to the impact of ecosystem change on
human well-being. It was launched by U.N. Secretary- General Kofi Annan in June 2001 and was
completed in March 2005. If it proves useful, it is anticipated that such integrated assessments will
be repeated every 5– 10 years and that ecosystem assessments will be regularly conducted at
national or sub-national scales.
The MEA synthesizes information from the scientific literature, datasets, and scientific models, and
includes knowledge held by the private sector, practitioners, local communities and indigenous
peoples. All of the MEA findings undergo rigorous peer review. More than 1,300 authors from 95
countries have been involved in four expert working groups preparing the global assessment, and
hundreds more continue to undertake more than 20 sub-global assessments. The findings are
available on the web site of the organization at www.millenniumassessment.org
Definitions and Primary Relevance
Let’s start with a definition to make sure we have a common understanding and some fundamental
concepts so that we understand some terminology that will be used later in the presentation.
An Ecosystem is a dynamic complex of plant, animal, and micro-organism communities and the
non-living environment acting as a functional unit. Humans are an integral part of ecosystems.
Ecosystems vary enormously in size; a temporary pond in a tree hollow and an ocean basin can both
be ecosystems.
The MEA used 10 ecosystem categories as the basis for their review of the planet ranging from
marine and coastal, through inland waterway, forest, dryland, island, mountain, polar, cultivated,
and urban categories. They used a conceptual model of ecosystem services (the benefits people
obtain from ecosystems) to assess the interaction between human well being and ecosystem
condition. These included provisioning, regulating, supporting, and cultural services. Provisioning
services were those that provided materials such as food, fuel, fibre etc, regulating services were
those that smoothed or mitigated impacts such as climate regulation and disease control, supporting
services included soil formation and nutrient cycling and cultural services were non material
benefits such as aesthetic, inspirational, educational etc.
These services were related to human well being on the basis of a model that included security
health social relations, freedom of choice and the basic material prerequisites for a good life.
As you may imagine with a series of scientific studies culminating in a complex summary
document, there are many pages of reports and the most straightforward way to understand the
major conclusions is to review the Powerpoint presentations that are available for downloading on
the web site. At first, the presentations are quite depressing but in reviewing them it is important to
recognize that some portion of the changes reported are the result of the shear number of human
beings on the face of what is increasingly becoming a rather small planet for the size of the
population. In the context of sustainability however, the key conclusion is that progress is
definitely not being made at a rate that is adequate to the need for improvement.
Let me present a very brief executive summary of the conclusions interspersed with a very
incomplete set of examples to give them form.
Executive Summary
1. Over the past 50 years, humans have changed ecosystems more rapidly and extensively
than in any comparable period of time in human history
Examples:
There has been rapid growth in demand for ecosystem services between 1960 and 2000. In
particular: world population doubled from 3 to 6 billion people
 global economy increased more than sixfold
To meet this demand:
 food production increased 2 ½ times
 water use doubled
 wood harvests for pulp and paper production tripled
 timber production increased by more than half
 installed hydropower capacity doubled
Additional examples:
 More land was converted to cropland in the 30 years after 1950 than in the 150 years
between 1700 and 1850
 20% of the world’s coral reefs were lost and 20% degraded in the last several decades
 35% of mangrove area has been lost in the last several decades
 Amount of water in reservoirs quadrupled since 1960
 Withdrawals from rivers and lakes doubled since 1960
2. This has resulted in a substantial and largely irreversible loss in the diversity of life on
Earth
Examples:




The distribution of species on Earth is becoming more homogenous
The population size or range (or both) of the majority of species across a range of
taxonomic groups is declining
Humans have increased the species extinction rate by as much as 1,000 times over
background rates typical over the planet’s history (medium certainty)
10–30% of mammal, bird, and amphibian species are currently threatened with
extinction (medium to high certainty)
3. The changes that have been made to ecosystems have contributed to substantial net gains
in human well-being and economic development
Example:

More food is being produced, cheaper, than ever before.
4. But these gains have been achieved at growing costs that, unless addressed, will
substantially diminish the benefits that future generations obtain from ecosystems
Examples:

Approximately 60% (15 out of 24) of the ecosystem services evaluated in this
assessment are being degraded or used unsustainably
Fisheries

25% of commercially exploited marine fish stocks are overharvested (high certainty)
Freshwater use

5 to possibly 25% of global freshwater use exceeds long-term accessible supplies (low
to medium certainty)

15 - 35% of irrigation withdrawals exceed supply rates and are therefore unsustainable
(low to medium certainty)
Air quality regulation

Ability of the atmosphere to cleanse itself of pollutants has declined since preindustrial times but not by more than 10%
Regional and local climate regulation

Changes in land cover have affected regional and local climates both positively and
negatively, but there is a preponderance of negative impacts ; for example, tropical
deforestation and desertification have tended to reduce local rainfall
Water purification and waste treatment

Globally, water quality is declining, although in most industrial countries pathogen and
organic pollution of surface waters has decreased over the last 20 years

Nitrate concentration has grown rapidly in the last 30 years
Pest regulation

In many agricultural areas, pest control provided by natural enemies has been replaced
by the use of pesticides – such pesticide use has itself degraded the capacity of
agroecosystems to provide pest control
Pollination

There is established but incomplete evidence of a global decline in the abundance of
pollinators
Natural hazard regulation

The capacity of ecosystems to buffer from extreme events has been reduced through
loss of wetlands, forests, mangroves

People are increasingly occupying regions exposed to extreme events
5. The degradation of ecosystem services could grow significantly worse during the first half
of this century and is a barrier to achieving the Millennium Development Goals
Issues:

There is established but incomplete evidence that changes being made in ecosystems
are increasing the likelihood of nonlinear changes in ecosystems (including
accelerating, abrupt, and potentially irreversible changes), with important
consequences for human well-being

Example – collapse of the cod fishery off Newfoundland in 1992
Level of poverty remains high and inequities are growing
 Economics and Human Development
 1.1 billion people are surviving on less than $1 per day of income. 70% in
rural areas where they are highly dependent on ecosystem services
 Inequality has increased over the past decade. During the 1990s, 21 countries
experienced declines in their rankings in the Human Development Index
 Access to Ecosystem Services
 An estimated 852 million people were undernourished in 2000–02, up 37
million from the period 1997–99
 Per capita food production has declined in sub-Saharan Africa
 Some 1.1 billion people still lack access to improved water supply, and more
than 2.6 billion lack access to improved sanitation
 Water scarcity affects roughly 1–2 billion people worldwide
 Degradation of ecosystem services harms poor people
 Half the urban population in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean
suffers from one or more diseases associated with inadequate water and
sanitation
 The declining state of capture fisheries is reducing an inexpensive source of
protein in developing countries. Per capita fish consumption in developing
countries, excluding China, declined between 1985 and 1997
 Desertification affects the livelihoods of millions of people, including a large
portion of the poor in drylands
6. The challenge of reversing the degradation of ecosystems while meeting increasing
demands for their services can be partially met under some scenarios that the MEA
considered but these involve significant changes in policies, institutions and practices, that
are not currently under way
Example:
Loss of wealth due to ecosystem degradation is not reflected in economic accounts
 Ecosystem services, as well as resources such as mineral deposits, soil nutrients, and
fossil fuels are capital assets
 Traditional national accounts do not include measures of resource depletion or of the
degradation of these resources
 A country could cut its forests and deplete its fisheries, and this would show only as a
positive gain in GDP without registering the corresponding decline in assets (wealth)
 A number of countries that appeared to have positive growth in net savings (wealth) in
2001 actually experienced a loss in wealth when degradation of natural resources were
factored into the accounts
7. Many options exist to conserve or enhance specific ecosystem services in ways that reduce
negative trade-offs or that provide positive synergies with other ecosystem services
Examples:

Significant investment in development of technologies to increase efficiency of use of
ecosystem services

Widespread use of ‘payments for ecosystem services’ and development of market
mechanisms

Past actions have yielded significant benefits, but these improvements have generally not
kept pace with growing pressures and demands.
·
For example, more than 100,000 protected areas covering about 11.7% of
the terrestrial surface have now been established, and these play an
important role in the conservation of biodiversity and ecosystem services

Technological advances have also helped lessen the pressure on ecosystems per unit
increase in demand for ecosystem services.

Substitutes can be developed for some but not all ecosystem services. The cost of
substitutes is generally high, and they may also have other negative environmental
consequences
Perspective – Impact on our Industry
Ecosystems are fundamentally biological entities – so how does the assessment relate to the
consulting engineering industry and is there anything our industry can do about this issue in a
positive sense?
First of all, we have a direct personal involvement in this as human beings and residents of this
small planet. Clearly the future well being of the planet and its biosphere are of primary interest to
us as individuals.
Second, we have a much more professional involvement as engineers. All ecosystems are affected
by the works of mankind. As I indicated earlier many of these effects are the simple result of the
fact that there are so many of us and many of these works have been constructed without regard for
the environmental cost in terms of the “free assets” that they diminish. As an industry we create a
high percentage of those works and we must in future bear responsibility for all of the aspects of our
creations. Almost without exception every project that we carry out has some impact on at least one
of the planet’s major ecosystems.
Last year we published a tool to help with this task – Project Sustainability Management – and each
of you has a copy of this tool with your conference materials. Is it something you can use tomorrow
in the execution of your projects – absolutely. Is it perfect – absolutely not. We will talk about this
more and some of its possible extensions in the course of the next day and a half. Read it and help
us to improve it and develop it and turn it into a common approach to be used in all of your projects.
Third, as society requires mitigation and reduction of future impact on ecosystems, it is to us they
will eventually turn for these improvements.
When I first started in this business more than 30 years ago, engineers were primarily concerned
with the physical sciences of math and physics and chemistry. Our projects demanded
consideration of these fields along with project finance and occasionally some economics. By the
mid-nineteen seventies we started to have projects that required us to add on considerations of
environmental contamination – and they very much were an add-on and in many cases an afterthought. By the mid-nineteen eighties, environmental considerations were embedded in the
development of all projects and their experts were integral parts of everything we did and we had to
learn about biology and toxicology. It wasn’t enough just to be able to spell them – you had to
understand their implications A decade later the success of a project depended more on
environmental considerations than the traditional engineering disciplines. Today it is the
sociological element that is beginning to pervade our universe and we find anthropologists and
sociologists and archaeologists and communications specialists in our firms. Their work has started
to be the “big issue” that controls success.
Throughout this evolution, engineering has changed. Professional registration bodies grant licenses
to design professionals with the explicit provision that the individuals so licensed incorporate the
safety of the general public in their design considerations. In future, I believe we will have a
growing professional obligation to consider ecosystem factors in our work product. Given the size
of the human population, the interactive nature of ecosystems, and the scale of the planet, one could
even argue that we are now engaged in the engineering of our own ecosystem and that in future
there will be more explicit recognition of this fact in the way that we conduct our business.
So What is The Challenge
Embrace this opportunity. Do not be dragged into it kicking and screaming, pick up the flag and
lead the charge. Recognize that it is your social responsibility as engineers to look after the safety
considerations of the general public as part of your license to practice and there is no greater safety
consideration than the future health of this planet. The problems are now – not five years from now
when politicians have been forced by circumstances to deal with unpopular requirements and when
lawyers finally have legislation in place that allows them to prosecute offenders. These things are
starting to happen now – some politicians are acting and some laws are starting to appear but we are
not making nearly enough progress, and real progress in this case begins with your projects.
Do we know the perfect answer – no, we certainly do not – but we know how to start and we know
that our friend “continuous improvement” will get us there.
In short our industry needs to build the capacity to deliver the required service and there are two
components to that structure – an environment for innovation and a means to exchange experience
and ideas.
Finally, because we do not operate in a vacuum with a completely free rein to do as we like, we
need to persuade our clients about the need and show them how to deal with the issues in their
projects. Many of them are already there in their understanding but many more need to be
convinced.
We can do this.
Thank-you for your attention.