Halting species loss has economic benefits, says EU

Christopher Le Coq Reuters 3 May 11;

(Reuters) - The European Union should halt the rapid extinction of plant and animal species by 2020 because it will cost less than trying to repair the damage once it is done, Europe's environment chief said on Tuesday.

Worldwide, species extinction rates are between 100 and 1,000 times the natural rate, the European Commission said in its latest biodiversity strategy.

It quoted research estimates that by 2050, $2-6 trillion in business opportunities could be realized should the private sector invest in preserving biodiversity.

The Commission set a target of halting biodiversity loss by 2020.

It also set a broader goal to restore biodiversity and ecosystem services provided by nature itself, such as air and water purification, by 2050.

"It is a much smarter economic investment to protect the diversity of life and healthy ecosystems ... than face tragedy once diversity has been lost," EU Environment Commissioner Janez Potocnik told a news conference.

The Commission did not provide details on how it hoped to achieve this, but Potocnik hopes a forthcoming overhaul of EU agricultural and fisheries policies will contribute.

In the EU's 27 member countries, 25 percent of animal species are under threat of extinction and 88 percent of fish stocks are seriously threatened.

Without action from business, as well as proper public policies, species loss will inexorably march on, largely through climate change, invasive foreign species and land-use changes.

Though the concept is abstract, the economic costs of continued species loss are real, according to the Commission and environmental campaigning organizations.

Overfishing leads to an annual loss of $50 billion of income for the industry, according to research by The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB).

Biodiversity loss leading to a decline in insect pollination, which is essential in sustaining crops, would have serious consequences for farmers and agribusiness.

The EU executive says pollination has an economic value to the 27-state European Union of 15 billion euros ($22 billion) per year.

Globally the figure is about 153 billion euros, representing 9.5 percent of global agricultural output for human food, according to TEEB.

But environmental organizations criticized the new 2020 biodiversity plan, noting that it lacks measurable targets.

"The EU's new biodiversity strategy is an important signal of good intentions but it does not have the real power to stop biodiversity loss," said Alberto Arroyo, conservation policy coordinator at WWF.

In March last year, EU leaders recognized their previous 2010 biodiversity objectives would not be met, with species loss continuing unabated.

(Reporting by Christopher Le Coq; Editing by Rex Merrifield)

Europe faces extinction of many species, EU says
Associated Press Google News 17 May 11;

BRUSSELS (AP) — The Iberian lynx that prowls the grasslands of southern Spain. The Mediterranean monk seal swimming waters off Greece and Turkey. The Bavarian pine vole that forages in the high meadows of the Alps.

These are among hundreds of European animal species — up to a quarter of the total native to the continent — that are threatened with extinction according to a warning issued this month by the European Union.

"Biodiversity is in crisis, with species extinctions running at unparalleled rates," said a statement from the European Union's Environment Commissioner, Janez Potocnik.

The threatened species include mammals, amphibians, reptiles, birds and butterflies. Plant life is under threat as well. The crisis is due to several factors, including loss of habitat, pollution, alien species encroachment, climate change and overfishing.

Critics say the EU's proposed solutions don't go far enough and lack funding.

"Life is possible because of biodiversity," said Ana Nieto, with the International Union for Conservation of Nature. "Everything comes from biodiversity. Everything comes from having well-functioning ecosystems."

The crisis threatens humans as well, potentially wreaking economic and social havoc in Europe, said Potocnik spokesman Joe Hennon.

The continuing loss of birds can allow insects to breed at alarming rates, harming crops, Hennon said. A reduced number of bees inhibits plant pollination. Diminishing forests mean water is not cleaned naturally and the soil is loosened, too, making floods and mud slides more likely.

All of that, Hennon said, means governments should spend money preserving species from extinction.

"People say, 'Yes, but we don't have the money to spend on environmental protection. Surely growth and jobs are more important,'" Hennon said. "You have to say, 'Well, look what happened in Pakistan last year. You can have catastrophic flooding because forests have been cut down. So it ends up costing you more in the long run."

The strategy proposed this month by Potocnik sets a variety of targets — among them, halting the loss of species in the European Union countries by 2020, putting management plans in place for all forests, restoring at least 15 percent of degraded ecosystems, controlling invasive species, and more.

Environmentalists have generally welcomed the targets but expressed skepticism.

"There needs to be funding and there's not really funding," said Nieto.

Hennon, the EU spokesman, acknowledged Monday that funding so far is insufficient to meet the EU's goals. A paper explaining the new proposals said the European Commission, the EU's executive arm, is "assessing the funding needs" for implementing the 2020 goals. The EU failed to meet its biodiversity targets for 2010.

The European Environmental Bureau, a confederation of grassroots environmental organizations, said the EU strategy "appears to fall short of delivering what is needed to protect Europe's valuable natural resource base."

Nieto said the loss of biodiversity is more acute in Europe than in many other parts of the world because of the scale of residential and industrial development. With an average of nearly 70 people per square kilometer (180 people per square mile), Europe is the second most densely populated continent, behind only Asia — and about three times as densely populated as North America.

"Today, biodiversity doesn't simply mean the protection of rare plants and species," said Sarolta Tripolzsky, with the European Environmental Bureau. "It's about protecting a system people rely on to live. The costs of replacing nature's free services would be devastating."

Conservationists argue that ecosystems over time find a complex balance and changing one seemingly small aspect can have significant consequences that cannot always be foreseen. They say there's also an obligation to preserve species, regardless of the consequences.

"The species was here before we were even here, so there's also a moral issue," Nieto said.