sustainable development 20 years on from the ... - José Eli da Veiga

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The valuable assets related to biodiversity in Latin America and the Caribbean could be a source
of income and jobs in many countries of the region. The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity study
presents a practical approach to the valuation of biodiversity that highlights the economic benefits of
biodiversity protection (TEEB, <strong>20</strong>10). The opportunities associated with payment for environmental
services are increasingly widely recognized. Innovative payment schemes for environmental services
have been implemented that not only protect biodiversity but also achieve other social and environmental
objectives, including offering economic opportunities for local communities. Among many other
initiatives, Costa Rica began implementing a programme of payment for environmental services as far
back as 1996; Mexico has launched a large-scale mechanism for payment for watershed services that
assigns the appropriate value to water resource protection (Pagiola, Landell-Mills and Bishop, <strong>20</strong>06); and
Colombia, Costa Rica and Nicaragua have reported increases of between 10% and 15% in farmers’
income levels where agroforestry practices are promoted. Payment schemes for environmental services
also hold significant job-creation potential (UNEP/ILO, <strong>20</strong>08).
The UNESCO Programme on Man and the Biosphere (MAB) was established in 1971 with the
aim of developing an interdisciplinary research and capacity-building agenda to improve people’s
relationship with the environment. A World Network of Biosphere Reserves was established under the
programme. This serves as a forum for research and exchanges and aims to promote the integration of
people with nature through participatory dialogue, research and knowledge sharing, poverty reduction,
improved welfare, respect for cultural values and society’s adaptability to change. A total of 109 of the
world’s 580 biosphere reserves are located in <strong>20</strong> countries of Latin America and the Caribbean. They
have a combined surface area of approximately 1.8 million square kilometres, representing 10% of the
region’s land mass. The Earth Summit in 1992 gave a huge boost to the creation of biosphere reserves. Of
the 109 biosphere reserves in the region, 70 were created after 1992. 7
Looking ahead, the challenges are to reverse biodiversity loss and, at the same time, internalize
the benefits of biodiversity conservation. Biodiversity is still not evaluated systematically and the major
underlying causes of its decline have not been reduced to any significant degree. National and
international financial and regulation structures should be geared towards internalizing the environmental
and social costs of biodiversity loss, or the benefits of biodiversity conservation.
In October <strong>20</strong>10, the tenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on
Biological Diversity (COP 10) adopted a new strategic plan for biodiversity from <strong>20</strong>11 to <strong>20</strong><strong>20</strong>. The
commitments respond to new challenges and are simple, measurable and understandable to all relevant
sectors. To move towards these goals, it is necessary to overcome a number of challenges relating to the
representativeness of ecosystems, incentives and resource management and availability, to ensure that the
planned safeguards are truly effective.
3. Forests
The Forest principles adopted in 1992 emphasized the importance of national policies for the <strong>sustainable</strong>
management of forest resources, institutional <strong>development</strong>, the provision of information, local
communities and indigenous peoples, and international cooperation. There is growing recognition of the
interrelationship between the protection of forests and biodiversity, and the <strong>development</strong> of the
international climate change regime has increased awareness of the importance of forests in carbon
sequestration, as well as the role of local communities in protecting it.
7
See [online] http://www.unesco.org/new/en/natural-sciences/environment/ecological-sciences/biosphere-reserves
[date of reference: December <strong>20</strong>11].