VII ecosystem management

Protecting ecosystems and the life-support services they provide from destruction and disruption requires a broad outlook – one that goes beyond individual sites. Drainage basins are the natural units for land use management, since water links different ecosystems and activities upstream inevitably have an impact downstream. The economic value attached to each basin’s ecosystems should recognize their role in regulating water quality and quantity. Peat swamp forest in Malaysia is being conserved because it is known to provide a reliable source of water during the dry season for nearby rice fields. Experience has shown that draining swamps and building reservoirs as substitutes for natural water storage is costly and unsatisfactory.

To maintain life-support services overall, each region needs to preserve or restore as much of its natural and modified ecosystems as possible. Conversion from one condition to another should always be thoroughly questioned.

Forests are particularly important as resources, as reservoirs of biodiversity and as absorbers of atmospheric carbon. Where their conversion is essential it should be compensated by the restoration of forests in other areas, and in their exploitation, excessive or destructive harvesting should always be avoided. Successful forest restoration projects have been established in India where families living in the fringes of degraded forest have agreed to protect, help rehabilitate and maintain the forest in return for forest-based employment and the rights to collect, fuelwood and fodder and sell forest products. Nearly 1,800 of such Forest Protection Committees have now been organized, and they protect close to 21,000 square kilometres (8,000 square miles) of forest land.

The maintenance of modified ecosystems is equally important within farmed and urbanized landscapes. Action should be taken to preserve small areas of wetland, woodland and species-rich meadows, as well as to maintain parks and gardens, especially those in which native species of plant and tree are growing.

Pollution has grown from a local nuisance to a global menace.

All societies should adopt the precautionary principles of minimizing discharges of substances that could be harmful and of ensuring that products and processes are non-polluting. Efforts are needed by:

• Governments in all countries, to tackle pollution in an integrated manner, employing a mix of economic and regulatory measures;

• Municipalities and public utilities, to maintain or improve air quality in their areas and bring sewage treatment up to modern standards;

• Industries, to make use of the best available technology and design to prevent pollution;

• Farmers, to use agrochemicals sparingly and minimise runoff of fertilisers and livestock wastes from agricultural land;

• Domestic consumers, to dispose of household waste carefully, not pour hazardous chemicals into waste water systems and minimize the use of chemical insecticides in the garden.

Such integrated pollution control avoids the risk that polluting materials will simply be transferred from one medium to another. The same agency should have the power to set effluent standards for vehicles, and control the use of chemicals in agricultural and household products.

In setting regulations and providing economic incentives for reduced emissions, governments can be guided by the Polluter Pays Principle. This principle requires that market prices reflect the full costs of environmental damage.

A mine or a chemical factory, for example, should pay the costs of ensuring that its effluents and emissions do not damage fisheries or create a hazard to health if they are polluting the ocean. The result is that a strong incentive for pollution control is created, thus encouraging industries to develop new processes, consumer goods that do not release pollutants, and better techniques for reclaiming useful or hazardous material.