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1.2
THE GLOBAL BIODIVERSITY CRISIS AND RELATED POLICY CHALLENGE
ThE BIoDIvErsITy crIsIs:
scALE AND cAUsEs
“…our natural environment is critical
to intelligent economic growth and
it is very easy to take for granted
what nature provides for free.”
chris carter, Minister of conservation, New Zealand
1.2.1 HOW MUCH OF OUR NATURAL
CAPITAL IS BEING LOST?
This section provides an introduction to key facts about
the planet’s natural capital and how it is increasingly
being lost. Information and examples are grouped by
ecosystem types for ease of reference. The implications
of species and genetic diversity loss are treated
separately at the end of this section.
forEsTs
Figure 1.1: Map of Forest Areas
forests in different forms cover an area of around
4 billion hectares (30.3% of total global land area)
(figure 1.1). The world’s forests contain 80-90% of the
world’s remaining terrestrial biodiversity (costanza et al
1997, see also fAo 2000). forests provide many
valuable goods and services, including timber, food,
fodder, medicines, climate regulation, provision of fresh
water, soil protection, carbon sequestration, cultural
heritage values and tourism opportunities (shvidenko
et al. 2005).
Source: Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (2005b): 28
TEEB for NATIoNAL AND INTErNATIoNAL PoLIcy MAKErs - chAPTEr 1: PAGE 7