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 The Time to Choose – the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment
Today’s release of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA), a five-year research effort by 1,360 of the world’s leading scientists, gives compelling evidence of our dependence on healthy and diverse ecosystems for clean water, food, a stable climate, and much more. The MEA is the largest mobilization ever to assess the current state of the world’s ecosystems, and the services they provide to support life on Earth. The MEA shows that unsustainable human actions are degrading ecosystems throughout the world. The short-term economic and other benefits that may be derived from exploitation of our forests, wetlands and oceans are significantly outweighed by the far greater long-term damage to human livelihoods and health. For example:
Governments, businesses, conservation and development organizations, and individuals can cooperate to integrate development and conservation efforts. With change, our ecosystems can continue to provide tangible economic, health, cultural, environmental and recreational benefits for future generations. Together the members of the coalition pledge their support and commitment to act on the MEA findings. We call on world governments to recognize the importance of achieving environmental sustainability. Future development plans must reflect the full costs and benefits of changes to ecosystem services, and establish transparent decision-making processes and incentives to openly involve all relevant stakeholders in decisions that ensure an equitable distribution of benefits and costs. We call on the private sector to take greater responsibility for its social and environmental impacts. Business leaders should adopt progressive approaches to ecosystem management, such as ensuring a sustainable supply of raw materials and reducing consumption of scarce resources. Consuming with a conscience is a personal contribution. Everyone can make choices in their own life that help to conserve our delicate natural systems, from using less water to taking public transport. The MEA shows conclusively that our ecosystems are in peril. Now is the time for action.
Conservation International’s Center for Environmental Leadership in Business (CELB) provides a new forum for collaboration between the private sector and the environmental community. Created in partnership with Conservation International (CI) and the Ford Motor Company, CELB operates as a division of CI and is governed by a distinct executive board of leaders from the business and environmental communities-engaging the private sector worldwide in creating solutions to critical global environmental problems in which industry plays a defining role. For further information about CELB, please visit celb.org. 
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MEDIA CONTACT Katrin Olson CELB [email protected] 703-341-2768 |
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