Selection 12

Ecosystems and Human Well-being

Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005

This article talks about the assessment made by the United Nations concerning the growing need of an ecosystem management change to better human well-being. It discusses the goals that will be met to create a sustainable ecosystem and what consequences they will have. In more detail it talks about how the ecosystem provides everything for survival and over the past 50 years humans have been changing our ecosystem, which some have benefited from and others have suffered. Mostly poor people are suffering from the way we manage our ecosystem. Some problems in our strategies are that we are degrading our ecosystem and the benefits for some people create problems for others. Some believe that we are creating irreversible damage to our environment. And a third problem is that even our attempts to create more food production can lead to changes in the ecosystem and create poverty. Even though our population is expected to decrease in the next fifty years our changes to the ecosystem will continue to increase and cause damage. These problems are not easy to fix and all we can do now is try to diminish their effects. However the changes are big and are not currently being used. Some solutions to lessen the severity of our problems are changes in institutions, government, economic policies, social and behavioural factors, technology,and many other ideas.

It then talks in more detail about the four major findings of the assessment on the problems and if there are actions that can be taken to save our ecosystem. The first finding talks about how humans have been decreasing the biodiversity of life on earth by using up a lot of our resources. This also impacts species that live in our ecosystems and they have been decreasing as a result. We have had to increase our technology and area management to cope with the increasing consumption of ecosystem services.

In the second finding they state how humans have made changes that contribute to substantial net gains for overall well-being but that they have come at a cost. The net gains of some result in the loss of others, particularly the poor. These problems unless addressed will substantially diminish the benefits that future generations obtain from our ecosystems.

In the third finding they discuss the four MA scenarios which were created to study the unpredictable features of change in drivers and ecosystem services. The changes in our ecosystem are predicted to last long and pose a risk to our Millennium Development Goals put forth by the U.N. Our target goals are supposed to be achieved by 2015 but most goals cannot be achieved unless everyone puts effort in improving the management of our ecosystems. Three of the MDG's goals are to eliminate hunger, decrease child mortality/undernourishment, and decrease diseases.

In the forth and final finding they state that lots of resources and money must be invested in technology and education but that we will not see results for years. These options will help reverse the degradation of our ecosystem while meeting increasing demand for services. The costs of some of these can be high and other negative outcomes are uncertain. It then talks about how degradation is hard to reverse without addressing the negative effects and positive outcomes of the five indirect drivers of change. An effective response to sustainable development must address these drivers and overcome any barriers related to the ecosystem.