LifeWeb

LifeWeb, Protected Areas, and Millennium Development Goals

Protected areas play an essential role in contributing to poverty alleviation and sustainable development. In addition to serving as world’s most effective instrument for conserving biological diversity, protected areas are recognized as an important tool in maintaining ecosystem services, which many people around the world, particularly the poor, are directly dependent on for their livelihood and well-being ( Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005). Maintaining biodiversity is vital to preserving essential human well-being ecosystem functions and services. According to the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, the services provided by ecosystems include: provisioning services – food, fresh water, timber, fiber, genetic resources and bio-chemicals; regulatory services – water, climate and disease regulation and water purification; cultural services – recreation and ecotourism, educational and spiritual; and supporting services – bio-geophysical systems of soil formation, nutrient cycling and biological production that support all other services ( Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005).

Despite their importance, most of these ecosystem services are being used unsustainably. Based on the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 15 out of 25 essential services provided by ecosystems are being degraded and overused (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005). In turn, deteriorating ecosystems and biodiversity loss have devastating effects on the health and well-being of individuals, limiting the availability of fresh water, food and other basic necessities. Furthermore, ecosystems degradation and habitat destruction seriously weaken the ecological resilience of ecosystems and their ability to safeguard communities by regulating hazards, thus making poor people most vulnerable to natural disasters, such as storms, floods and droughts (Roe and Bond, 2007). The health impacts from unsustainable use of ecosystem services, including unsafe water and sanitation, climate change, air pollution and growing disease burdens, are felt most acutely by the world’s poorest, who depend heavily on forests, pastures, farming and fisheries for their livelihood (TEEB, 2008).

Therefore, recognizing the link between ecosystem services and the health and well-being of individuals, it must be understood that meeting the Millennium Development Goals without taking measures to conserve biodiversity and protect ecosystems is impossible: “The loss of services derived from ecosystems is a significant barrier to the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals and the MDG targets for 2015” ( Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005, 18). Based on the evidence presented in the Millennium Assessment report, in order to sustain critical ecosystem services in the long run, the integrity and completeness of ecosystems must be maintained. For this reason, protected areas can serve as a powerful tool in helping to achieve the Millennium Development Goals and targets ( Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005).

Hence, if properly designed and maintained, protected areas can substantially contribute to poverty alleviation. Although as many as 130,000 of protected areas have been established worldwide, covering 13% of the world’s terrestrial surface, many protected areas are inadequately maintained and shockingly underfunded (http://www.cbd.int/protected). The LifeWeb Initiative plays an instrumental role in strengthening financing for protected areas, thus serving as an important mechanism contributing to the improvement of health and well-being of individuals around the world.

Protected Areas and Millennium Development Goals

Goal 1: Eradicate Extreme Poverty and Hunger

Further reduction of crop genetic diversity and extinction of many livestock breeds will significantly threaten food security and income, leaving the world’s poorest people most vulnerable to suffer the negative effects of biodiversity loss. Protected areas can contribute to poverty reduction by preserving important genetic resources for food and agriculture, improving food security, and increasing livelihood and income generation options (UNU-IAS Report, 2008).

Example:

"A study in Cambodia has shown that fuel wood, fishing and other resources provided by mangrove-protected areas, constituted 20-58% of household incomes, with heavier reliance among poorer households" (The Value of Nature 2008, 9).

Goal 2: Achieve universal primary education

Education attainment and healthy ecosystems are closely intertwined. Adequate education can have a positive effect on the management of ecosystems and protected areas, and ensure more sustainable use of services derived from them. Conversely, the income generated from protected areas, through ecotourism for example, may contribute to the expansion of local infrastructure, including schools (Wall and Rabbinge, 2005).

Example:
A recent study by the International Food Policy Institute in Washington demonstrated that protected areas in Costa Rica and Thailand contributed to reducing the poverty level in those countries by 10% and 30% respectively. The creation of protected areas increased income generation from eco-tourism and improved local infrastructure, providing new economic opportunities to local communities (Kwaw et al., 2010).

Goal 3: Promote gender equality and empower women

Biodiversity loss has a direct impact on the well-being and status of women, whose role as forest gatherers is seriously compromised by deforestation. On the other hand, evidence shows that women who live in a close proximity to well-forested areas have a greater contribution to the household income and, as a result, enjoy a better social status. Similarly, marine protected areas significantly improve the lives of women and play an important role in empowering them economically and socially by providing substantial financial benefits and creating greater income opportunities for women (Mulongoy et al., 2008; TEEB, 2008).

Example:
"In Navakavu MPA in Fiji, women are the reef gleaners and benefit financially by collecting and selling the bountiful shellfish from just outside the marine protected area. In MPAs of Bunaken in Indonesia and Apo Islands in the Philippines, diving tourism created more high-income job opportunities for women, improving their lives. In the Arnavons MPA in Solomon Islands, women gained a stronger voice in community meetings when they became involved in the income earning activities of seaweed farming and traditional clothes making" (The Value of Nature 2008, 9).

Goal 4: Reduce child mortality

Degraded ecosystems, particularly those containing a considerable amount of standing water, are a source of waterborne diseases like malaria and diarrhea. Ingestion of unhygienic and unsafe water contributes to millions of death among children in developing countries (Wall and Rabbinge, 2005). 90% of all deaths from diarrhoeal disease occur in children under 5 years of age (Stockholm Environment Institute, 2005). 5).

Example:
"Researchers working with Conservation International’s Center for Applied Biodiversity Science found that in communities living near the Ruteng Park (Indonesia) protected area, there were fewer illnesses from malaria and dysentery, children missed less school because of improved health, and less hunger was associated with crop failure than in communities without intact forests nearby" (The Value of Nature, 13).

Goal 5: Improve maternal health

The risk of death from complications related to pregnancy and childbirth is 1 in 16 in Africa, and 1 in 3,700 in North America. Preventative care, which includes access to safe water, soil and food, is key to reducing maternal deaths (Wall and Rabbinge, 2005).

Example:
"Protected area programmes that promote fuel efficiencies and improved village water supplies (e.g. gravity feed or wells) for neighbouring communities can improve maternal health by saving women time and labour, and also children’s health because women have more time for childcare" (Stolton and Dudley 2010, 78).

Goal 6: Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases

Malaria is responsible for 2 million deaths a year, with 90% of all cases occurring in Sub-Saharan Africa and mostly in children under the age of 5. The changes in the epidemiological system, including those produced as a result of deforestation, are responsible for the outbreaks of this serious and common vector-borne disease. Proper management of ecosystems has an important effect on environmental and socio-economic determinants of health, helping to prevent the spread of water-borne diseases (Wall and Rabbinge, 2005).

Example:
"A study in the Peruvian Amazon found that the primary malaria vector, Anopheles darlingi, had a biting rate that was more than 278 times higher in deforested areas than in areas that were heavily forested. Avoiding deforestation or restoring natural vegetation can thus reduce risk of malaria and certain other diseases" (Stolton and Dudley 2010, 18).

Goal 7: Ensure environmental sustainability

Biodiversity loss undermines the provision of important ecosystem services, diminishing the capacity and resilience of the land, and negatively impacting the health and well-being of individuals. Improved ecosystems management, rehabilitation and restoration of degraded ecosystems will help to enhance ecosystem services, contribute to the protection of the services responsible for the provision of a regular supply of clean water, and reduce the pressure on degrading ecosystems, thus contributing to the achievement of the other MDGs (UNEP, 2005).

Example:
"Safeguarding the provisioning of ecosystem services and biodiversity benefits in protected areas could cost as little as two orders of magnitude less than the valued benefits of ecosystems and biodiversity. …For the annual investment of US$ 45 billion – around a sixth of what needed to conserve all ecosystem services worldwide – we could protect natural services worth some US$ 5 trillion in protected areas: an extremely good benefit-cost ration of 100:1" (TEEB 2008, 38).

Goal 8: A global partnership for development

The LifeWeb Initiative provides a great opportunity to achieve global partnership in the area of biodiversity conservation. As a partnership platform that strengthens financing for protected areas, LifeWeb contributes to the creation and strengthened management of protected areas, thus helping to secure livelihoods and address climate change through implementation of the CBD Programme of Work on Protected Areas.

Example:
Since the launch of the LifeWeb Initiative in May 2008, the Government of Germany has provided financial support to a number of projects in partner countries totalling over €80 million Euros. The Finnish Government pledged half a million Euros for the LifeWeb Initiative at the 9th meeting of the Convention on Biological Diversity. The government of Spain is committed to supporting the implementation of the CBD Programme of Work on Protected Areas in 2010-2011. Additionally, a number of other public and private donors are increasingly exploring opportunities to support LifeWeb Expressions of Interest for the multiple benefits they generate to sustain biodiversity, and improve livelihoods (LifeWeb brochure).