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2.9. Sharman

Keynote Presentations from the 2nd ALTER-Net Summer School, Peyresq 1 - 13 September 2007



Speaker: Martin Sharman
martin.sharman -at- ec.europa.eu
Policy Officer - Biodiversity and Ecosystems. Unit DI-4 Management of Natural Resources. Directorate General for Research, European Commission, B-1049 Brussels, Belgium


Title of the talk: Why conserve biodiversity? (pdf: 2MB)


Summary of the talk by Libuse Hajkova: Students´ summary (pdf)


Abstract

Why conserve biodiversity?

Homo sapiens exploded across our planet in an astonishingly short period after the origin of the species in Africa. Very recently indeed, we learned to go beyond human muscle-power and harnessed other sources of energy, and quickly the size of the human population doubled, and redoubled, and redoubled again. In the last half-century, as the population hurried from 2 billion to shoot though 6 billion, the material demands per capita of a large part of our global population have also grown, to increase the total environmental claims of humans yet further, with dramatic consequences for Earth's biosphere. The UN predicts that world population will peak at 9 billion – but our appetite for biodiversity-based renewable resources is already greater than the planet can sustainably supply. An acceptable human future depends on working out how to live within the biological means of the planet, and then rapidly doing so. Without this, increasing overpopulation, pollution, over-harvesting, non-sustainable agriculture and soil loss will lead to regional famine and the collapse of key ecosystem services, including pollination and the provision of clean water. The continued disruption to phytoplankton and the removal of forests will further reduce the stability of the climate. But no matter how uncomfortable it gets, we will almost certainly not manage to wipe out life on Earth. Why, then, should we make a big effort to conserve biodiversity? Not for the sake of biodiversity itself, but because unless we do so, our own future may well be nasty, brutish, and short.




Recommended background literature on this presentation:

Four of these are books, not papers. I selected them because they are intelligent, well written, and interesting, and show how biodiversity and evolution, human history and development are linked. The 5th, a blog, contains some interesting ideas on how sustainability might be defined. The 6th is a short report from an influential economist, well-worth reading to glimpse a world-view in which biodiversity seems not to figure at all, and in which human populations can grow forever. You don't need to read any of them for my presentation, but each of them is in one way or another thought-provoking.




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The views expressed are purely those of the writer and may not in any circumstances be regarded as stating an official position of the European Commission.
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