Section I. Introduction and Basic Principles Module I. Analysis of the Global Ecological Situation

Module Objective

Aware of the global ecological situation and the importance to adopt practices and behaviors promoting the sustainable management and conservation of the natural resources.

Introduction

Our world is suffering unpredictable changes in the natural world. Everywhere, destruction and profound degradations of the natural habitats are found and their implications for biodiversity conservation and resources sustainability have global impact (1). Increasingly more, people of all disciplines – scientists, economists, business people and world leaders, along with professional environmental activists – recognize that our population’s habits are not sustainable. Because of these tendencies, we are on a collision course threatening not only our basic human needs, but also the fundamental systems that maintain the planet’s ability to support life (2).

A finite planet cannot continue adding 90 million people each year to the global population, nor can we endure the loss of top soil, atmosphere changes, species extinction, and water loss without re- establishing sufficient resources levels in order to permit life support (2).

The planet that we know today is very different from the planet that existed immediately after its start date. Approximately 4.5 billion years ago the world began. It was not affected by the appearance of human life. Within 200 thousand years, human beings evolved to act as the agent of change that sparked the many changes occurring in our planet’s natural habitats: threatened and extinct species and the deterioration of the air, water and soils of the Earth’s habitats.

Figures from the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) reveal that more than 6 billion women and men of the world use diverse biodiversity benefits and services everyday originating from forest biodiversity. This environmental element, the forests were reflected on by Buddha 250 BC as “The forest is a peculiar organism of goodwill and well-being without limits, making no demand for its survival and extends generously the products of its activity, which is the life its support, giving protects to all beings and offering shade even to the lumberjack that destroys

it”. The forests are critical to our planet as providers of livelihood to the human population. Furthermore, the forests, whether they be natural or planted, also contribute in a significant way to national and local economies (3). Products such as timber, firewood, a wide variety of non-timber forest products and environmental services protecting water basins, biodiversity conservation, soil stability, and the management of climate changes are some of the positive contributions of our forests.

II. Causes behind the situation

To meet the demand of human beings, there is a great pressure on the environment, putting it in danger, decreasing its capacity to meet these necessities. It is difficult to quantify what will be the precise effect on the natural world if deforestation continues as it is. However, this situation highlights the arising of a series of global changes that provoke important consequences on the environment.

Deforestation

According to Senanayake (2007), 99% of the forest biodiversity is composed by non-tree components, and trees constitute 1% (4). This element is a great stability factor for the environment, and has been violated by deforestation, cause and phenomenon that is contributing in an enormous way to the future global climate change, a situation full of vast challenges, economic costs, social worries, and environmental changes particularly for people and resources from developing countries. This problem includes species loss and annexed biodiversity because of the degradation of water resources.

In this destructive process the results are global complications and disturbance of destructive environmental events, reducing productivity in the affected areas, they alter water cycles, and make it more difficult to obtain basic survival of forests. According to Fernow, the prime Secretary of the

Forestry Service of the United States, “The first and most important objective of the forest is to provide us with timber, the provision of trees. But its main objective is its beauty and its shade” (6).

Mismanagement of water resources

The situation is no different for our world’s water resources. Water demand for energy use, agriculture, consumption, production and other necessities is rapidly increasing. Water is life, but it is a scarce resource with unequal distribution.

In planet Earth, only 3% of water is fresh water: 2% is in ice form and 1% in liquid state. This situation increases as population increases and different economic activities demand high quality water. However, water availability is threatened and reduced because of many sources of pollution, on top of the climate change noted in water cycles and in the earth’s distribution of water, all affecting the opportunity to access the resource (5). This situation is increasingly precarious, and we can find ourselves with an inadequate amount as we abuse the management of this resource.

Extensive agriculture

Extensive agriculture continues to represent the majority of land use. Grasslands and cultivated land take up only 37% of the earth’s arable land surface (2). Almost two thirds of the water used by man goes toward agriculture. It is one of the principle causes of forest degradation, with the removal of forest cover and destructive pressure on soils (excessive livestock grazing and crop rotation without laying fallow) as the consequences of our agricultural production systems.

With the transformation of natural ecosystems into cultivated lands of various types, changes are inevitable: in the nutrient cycle, the soil structure, water cycle, macro and microclimates and in the appearance of diseases and plagues. Because of this there will always be a preoccupation about soil quality change and biodiversity, in a negative sense. We must determine what is changing, in what way and at what rate (6).

Urbanization

The urbanization, stemming from over population, provokes irreversible change and pressure on humanity and the natural environment. The rapid expansion of urban zones alters the earth’s surface coverage and causes vegetation and animal habitat loss. This demographic uninhibited growth provokes further settlement of land and the resource exploitation of certain areas with fragile natural resources.

The excess pressure from urban areas on ecosystems limits the capacity for natural generation, causing gradual disappearance of resources (6). Environmental issues in conjunction with the conversion of the natural ecosystems to agricultural regions and the urban areas have critical repercussions on ecosystem functions at a global scale. The level of gravity of these repercussions will depend greatly on where and how the urban sites are established and more so on the consumption models that our population adopts (7).

Loss of biodiversity

The biodiversity of a country, region (marine or terrestrial) and the planet all together is reflected in the different types of ecosystems that it contains, the number of species it possesses, along with the varieties and types of which they are composed. However, this biodiversity is being threatened by human activities, which modify, destroy and/or completely alter numerous ecosystems. Among its principle factors are: the grand scale and intensive extraction of valuable resources, the conversion of natural habitats to agricultural land, changes in the use of soils, climate change, the introduction

of exotic species resulting invasive and the contamination of land and aquatic ecosystems (8). The loss of biodiversity seems to increase by the type of economic development occurring in regions of environmental fragility.

Today we count on means to reverse, in whatever way, many of the problems that humankind causes on the environment. However, the biodiversity loss is the only environmental change that without a doubt is irreversible. When one species goes extinct there is absolutely nothing we can do to revive it. The miseducation about species creates a lack of value, care, conservation, preservation and defense for all life. Our world contains a wide variety of ecosystems and species, of which all are vital for the natural biological equilibrium. Today, there is still limited knowledge about the roles and functions of the species in the complex ecosystem dynamics.

This situation has forced people to adapt to new practices to value the numerous and important resources that offer our population biodiversity and social and economic well-being. We can take advantage of the various resources biodiversity offers, as long as we manage our resources in ways that do not harm the natural ecosystem, and we use appropriate methods to conserve this biodiversity.

Save: procedures to avoid the disappearance and to conserve the ecosystem and its components, identifying its social and economic benefits, and to establish the best options for long-term maintenance;

Learn: requirement permitting the determination of sustainable uses and needs, integrating modern and traditional knowledge, to learn of all required elements for the survival of our species.

Use: mechanisms that elevate the immediate value that biodiversity provides for our societies, and the ability to advance human existence (9).

III. Consequences

The previously mentioned issues, which have been at play since the end of the 19th Century, have increased the average annual temperature of the earth’s surface atmosphere. It is possible that this actual rate of greenhouse gases emission may increase the global temperatures by 2°C; that would have an irreversible effect on the life on earth (10). Climate change generates interactions, which will have large and profound effects on our world’s resources, directs affecting our population, through food production, water resource availability, loss of diversity of animals, plants, habitats and genetics. This situation, which is one of the most urgent in the world, places the natural world under many threats (11).

Pollution and/or overexploitation of water, soils (the integration of chemicals), atmosphere, forests, and arable lands are some of the many forms of resource exhaustion that degrade the environment and the ecosystem interaction that together provide services upon which plants and animals depend.

IV. The time to act

However, the positive side of the global climate change and ecological situation is that human beings possess a wide range of solutions and alternatives that will help fight these negative changes. We have 50% probability to avoid the global temperature ride of 2 °C if we stabilize the emissions of greenhouse gases and their effects. We must start to radically reduce our emissions now and maintain this change in order to avoid further increase of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere. To better restore, conserve and manage natural resources is a profitable and efficient manner to stabilize the world ecological situation and the emission of greenhouse gas.

The capacity for today’s generations to meet their basic needs without compromising the needs of future generations translates into a sustainable development that practices resource management with a vision that includes all ecosystem well-being. This inability to manage principle resources increases the necessity to find alternative resources to improve food production and result in the restoration of degraded areas.

Various studies show that it is possible to stabilize forest damage and the rest of our natural resources, designing floral architecture that balances natural enemy populations, avoid soil erosion and maintain adequate conditions for the development of vegetable and animal species (2). Analog

Forestry was created as an alterative to today’s production systems, as an effective way to curb deforestation and provide habitat for otherwise displaced species (11). Analog Forestry uses socially, economically and culturally compatible ecological species, which also produce benefits and services such as water access, sustenance, spices, medicinal plants, timber, biomass fuel, fiber and genetic resources, human population essential needs, industry, science, climate regulation, cultural services such as recreation and aesthetic value, and soil formation, among others.

References

(1) Brennet, A. 2004. Enlazando el paisaje: el papel de los corredores y la conectividad en la conservación de la vida silvestre. Moravia, Costa Rica. (2) Nebel, B.J. 1999. Ciencias ambientales. Ecológicas y desarrollo sostenible, 6ª. Ed. (3) Hall, R., Lovera, S. 2009. Global Forest Coalition. Los Bosques y el Cambio Climático. Manual sobre el papel de los bosques en las negociaciones de las Naciones Unidas sobre el cambio climático. (4) Red Internacional de Forestería Análoga (RIFA). 2007. Memorias de Taller de Forestería Análoga. Febrero 2007. Turrialba, Costa Rica.

(5) LEISA. Revista de Agro-ecología. Agua ecosistemas y agricultura. Vol. 26 Número 3 -. Consultado octubre 2010. Disponible en: http://latinoamerica.leisa.info/index.php?url=magazine-details.tpl&p[readOnly]=1&p[_id]=250661 (6) Pichincha, P. 2006. Evaluación de la sostenibilidad ecológica de los sistemas de Forestería Análoga, Agroforestería convencional y un pastizal en la comunidad el progreso. (7) Urbanización y sostenibilidad en el siglo XXI. Disponible en: http://www.unfpa.org/swp/2007/spanish/chapter_5/land_cover.html (8) Acuña, R. 2003. La Biodiversidad. 1 ed. San José, C.R: Editorial de la Universidad de Costa Rica. (9) García, R. 2002. Biología de la conservación: conceptos y prácticas. (10) Unión Internacional para la Conservación de la Naturaleza (UICN). 2010. Un serio desafío. Disponible en: http://www.iucn.org/es/que/climatico/ (11) RIFA. 2010. La Gran Guía de la Forestería Análoga. (12) http://www.panda.org/ (13) http://www.iucn.org/ (14) http://www.ipcc.ch/ (15) Programa de las Naciones Unidas para el medio Ambiente (PNUMA). 2008. Nuestro Planeta, Deja el hábito, hacia una economía baja en carbono. URL address: http://www.pnuma.org/dmma2008/acerca.html