A few pioneers are integrating conservation and human development. The Costa Rican government is paying landowners for ecosystem services from tropical forests, including carbon offsets, hydropower production, biodiversity conservation and scenic beauty. China is investing $100 billion in “ecocompensation,” including innovative policy and finance mechanisms that reward conservation and restoration. The country is also creating “ecosystem function conservation areas” that make up 18 percent of its land area. Colombia and South Africa have made dramatic policy changes, too.
Three advances would help the rest of the world scale such models of success. One: new science and tools to value and account for natural capital, in biophysical, economic and other terms. For example, the Natural Capital Project has developed InVEST software that integrates valuation of ecosystem services with trade-offs, which governments and corporations can use in planning land and resource use and infrastructure development. Two: compelling demonstrations of such tools in resource policy. Three: cooperation among governments, development organizations, corporations and communities to help nations build more durable economies while also maintaining critical ecosystem services.
This article was originally published with the title Boundaries for a Healthy Planet.
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10 Comments
Add Comment- Fact: Arctic sea ice, lowest recorded level 2008
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this- Fact: icebergs the size of states cleaving off in Antarctica
- Fact: Vast majority of glaciers retreating
- Fact: CO2 levels at highest measured levels in more than 600,000 years
- Fact: disproportionate number of weather records set in the last 10 years
- Fact: Seqa levels have risen, especially over the last 20 years
- Opinion (unsupported): mans activity has nothing to do with this.
Fact: Lowest recorded level of sea ice 2007, much higher in 2008 and 2009.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFact: Pile a lot of snow and ice in the middle of antarctica and the pile tries to expand, but the circumference of the outer circle gets longer and longer. So the ice at the border has no option except to break off in large chunks. All due to more ice and snow, not less.
Fact: Glaciers started retreating around 1700 - 1800, before increases in CO2 and represent less than 5% of all the ice.
Fact: indirectly estimated CO2 levels are lower than ever now. Have been as much as 10 - 20 times higher in the far distant past.
Fact: What you said about disproportionate is impossible to understand or comment on.
Fact: Seqa doesn't mean anything as far as I know.
Opinion: Man's activity has everything to do with the lately touted global warming.
Ok so history is vague and wraught with estimates.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf we focus on the present, there is little room for manoeuvre - the climate is warming, CO2 levels (and others) are rising, and we could, be coming to a point of no return which could be avoided if we review our energy policies.
Fact: renewable energy has made leaps in economic feasibility as a source for both consumer and industrial use.
Fact: renewable energy will definitely not:
1) increase pollution
2) increase carbon emissions
Question: Other than monopolistic protectionism is there any other reason not to abandon carbon and nuclear?
Fact: Risk management means dealing with the posible threat, before the verfification is there - which is in most cases too late.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFact: Risk management does not allow for ideology, only for thinking.
Fact: The number of people who reject risk management is larger than that of people who support it.
Fact: The world is full of ruins of cultures that didn't want to see the signs of their times, in time to react.
Opinion: You can rely on an ideology that there i nor climate risk.
What? No planetary boundary for human population? Without this all-important boundary, all others are irrelevant. Go back to the drawing board and start over.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this� This country has been designed to need nonrenewable resources to provide food and
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisenergy. Petroleum is a critical resource and we have used up most of it. There are not enough
nonrenewable resourses left to sustain this country until the population is reduced to a
sustainable amount, and it is extremely unlikely that this country will ever reduce its
population enough. When those resourses are gone gone, our food supply will be gone and
civilization as we know it in 2010 will disappear. The United States began going in the
wrong direction at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, when the country reached its
population capacity and began depending on fossil fuels for its energy supply. Artificial
fertilizer made from oil came later. The United States passed a point of no return more
recently. The most optimistic estimate says we have 100 years left. The most pessimistic says
we have 3 years left. I tend to assume the most pessimistic prediction is true when making
plans, so we have at least 3 years. I have heard predictions of 100 years of oil available in 30
years 40 years ago, and it is not here now, so I do not believe it will ever exist. I believe this
country will be in horrible shape in 2060, likely between 2012 and 2030. This will be an
exceedingly horrible time and things will be constantly getting worse. Farther than I will be
able to see, there will be madness, despair, and horror beyond understanding, imagination,
and belief. There will be little food, less electricity, and no health care. Anyone who will
need medication, such as insulin, to live will soon die. Much food and water will be
contaminated. We believe there are no limits to economic and population growth, but that
is not true. The continuous population capacity of the United States is about 5 million and
that of the planet is about 5 million. To save civilization, women must have had an average
of one child each or less, beginning at least by 1970. That has not been done and this country
is living on borrowed time. If civilization has not collapsed by 2060, it eventually will. It is
not a matter of if it will happen, but a matter of when it will happen. I hope history will prove
me wrong, but the evidence I see points my way. If civilization can be saved, some extremely
unpopular things must be done, and we should do them, anyway. Population must be
reduced. Economic growth must stop. Renewable energy must be developed, and eventually
everything must use only renewable energy. Everything must eventually be recycled.
Packaging should be minimal and must be recyclable. Farming must soon be done without
irrigation, artificial pesticides, or artificial fertilizers. This is not all, but is critical. Since the
people are extremely unlokely to reduce the population enough in time, even if the country
can be save, this country will not survive. Sorry to be the bearer of the bad news.
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Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis article provides A solution for problems discussed in the previous article [Boundaries for a Healthy Planet]. Why does no one talk about attacking the fundamental cause: too many humans. Overpopulation was a meme in the past for environmentalists. Today it seems politically incorrect to even mention the concept. Stopping population growth in its tracks and cutting in half the current population would solve most of the boundries we are crossing or approaching.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThese articles have stepped out (way out) of science and into the realm of politics in a very overt manner. I admire Scientific American when its goal is to educate and instruct on scientific issues. When articles doggedly adhere to a political viewpoint, we readers lose and your magazine loses.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMore embarassing for SA is in the magazine...there is a section where the belief of these authors is "taken on"...laughable as no question took on the authors but rather allowed them to rebut various positions.
Shame on Scientific American.
Fact: Man will eventually destroy this planet, but not in our lifetime.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMan has to clean up the mess, find new (greener) ways to live life on this perfect planet... as for right now, we only have one, and when its gone... its gone.