Reversing ecosystem degradation: working with city youths

Education curriculum for youth should be designed in ways that their grades are linked to conservation actions. 

Oxygen, an otherwise conveniently forgotten thing, has been the most talked about crisis in India in recent months. However, much of the attention stayed put on the oxygen cylinders and concentrators. Very naturally so. A few Indians, who are generally concerned about environment at the normal times as well, raised the issue of oxygen that we get from natural environments. A few posts on social media emphasised the need for planting more trees. Some even discussed, rather criticized, about the damage we are doing to ourselves by destroying the trees and forests.  These few people, to me, are the real thinkers of our times. 

As a self-proclaimed civilized world, we should never forget the fact that each oxygen-laden breath we take, the food we eat, the shelter we are in, and almost everything that we claim to be rightfully ours, are given by the natural world. 

We are part of the natural systems, an integral component of the biodiversity ourselves. However, we have been the prime reason for destroying the ecosystems that support us. Our fight for oxygen cylinders and concentrators during the Covid pandemic may end soon but our fight for the oxygen from the natural systems is getting fiercer by the day. There will certainly be life beyond one pandemic, but there cannot be life when we have destroyed the natural spaces and the biodiversity they support. 

While Covid is a huge challenge, perhaps the most difficult pandemic we have faced so far in our life time, loss of biodiversity, coupled with climate change, is a much bigger challenge that we face at the moment. Understanding this would help us fight not only this one pandemic but also the future pandemics. 

Biodiversity loss and our peril

The loss to biodiversity has been the fastest in recent decades, even as climate change science gets much sharper and awareness drives against destruction of ecosystems go overboard. The last 50 years have seen the maximum destruction to the biodiversity. According to estimates, about half of all the animals may have been lost in just half a century’s time. The way we are destroying habitats now was not seen in the four billion years of Earth’s history. Some scientists are of the opinion that this may already have started the process for the sixth mass extinction. 

A ground-breaking study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and reported in the Guardian, has given frightening estimates of how humans have pushed almost all other species to extinction already.  This first comprehensive estimate of the weight of every class of living creature finds out that the humans represent just 0.01% of all living things but has caused the loss of 83% of all wild mammals and half of plants.

Of all the birds that exist in the world today, only 30% are wild.  Rest are farmed poultry. 

Among the mammals, only 4% wild ones still remain.  Livestock make up almost 60% of them and the rest 36% are humans.  The massive destruction of forests and wetlands have also resulted in extinction of these species.  That’s not a good sign for us. 

Destroying nature is not good economics either.  The prestigious and widely acclaimed Dasgupta Review “Economics of Biodiversity” clearly says that our economies, livelihoods and well-being all depend on our most precious asset: Nature. We need to ensure that our demands on Nature do not exceed its supply, and that we increase Nature’s supply relative to its current level.  Currently, it is estimated that humanity is using resources of 1.6 Earths.  That’s unsustainable and we are sure to face more pandemics and other disasters.

UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration

It has now been well realised that the current approaches to economic growth cannot be pursued any further. The UN has in a report said that degradation of natural ecosystems is already affecting the well-being of an estimated 3.2 billion people — that is 40 percent of the world’s population.  Over the past five years, the world lost roughly 10 million hectares (25 million acres) of forests per year, an area about three and a half times as big as Belgium. We have destroyed about 64-71 percent of wetlands during the last century.  Almost 20 percent of global farmlands are degraded, even as agriculture has cleared an estimated 70 percent of grasslands across the globe. An estimated one-third of global fisheries are overfished, threatening 60 million fishers around the world.

2021-2030 has been declared as the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration to rev up the task of conserving the remaining natural resources and also for restoring the degraded ones. The UN says ecosystems are an indispensable ally of humans if we wish to meet objectives of this decade. Unless we work towards these objectives, we cannot also achieve the targets of the Paris Climate Agreement and the Sustainable Development Goals. 

Restoration is good economics, the UN says as it calls for restoration of at least 1 billion hectares of degraded land in the next decade.  A costly proposition for sure but compared to the benefits, this is highly beneficial.  

If ecosystem services decline at a steady rate, an estimated $10 trillion in global GDP may be lost by 2050. It is estimated that about half of the global GDP depends on nature.

Investing in ecosystem restoration can help human race in many ways. Free oxygen, water and food security, combating climate change are just a few to note. However, can the global calls and commitments be realised unless we create a foundation for these actions in the society? This question is more relevant for the urban population, who are fast getting detached from Nature and their lives are revolving around the GDP centric economic growth models and life styles. 

Convincing them to start loving nature and preserving the same in their neighbourhood has been a daunting task.  Each free inch of space in urban landscapes is being converted into something or the other that will only provide economic and other services to the city dwellers without any scope of Nature to grab its own share.  Let’s talk about something I observed during the Covid pandemic, especially during the Covid lockdown times.

Urban youths, their dilemma and need for ecosystem education

During the pandemic, as people were locked inside four walls of their homes, while most of the younger generations stuck to their mobile phones, people of my generation felt suffocated.  The youths too were suffocated but not because they missed the greenery.  I say this because I must have talked to hundreds of them. City dwellers craved for free spaces. Balconies, terraces and rooftops were thronged like never before. The parks and urban tree areas were missed the most.  Water bodies too. But when it comes to the youths, they did not care about the green spaces much.  Internet is where the young nation is. Well for most of them, if not all. 

Urbanisation – dominated by grey infrastructure and that destroys common property resources such as trees, ponds, waterways – is considered among the major causes of biodiversity loss. 

The world is fast getting urban and the decisions for Earth’s survival is being taken in the cities.  These youths, at the current state of understanding on biodiversity loss and its impact on our common future, would not be able to hold on to the promises of the world governments who are making big commitments on climate change and biodiversity. The foundation for grassroots actions for global commitments has to be built in societies, cities.

The need of the hour for each city is to plan for biodiversity conservation and restoration. For this to happen, while each urban dweller needs to be involved, the youth especially be educated and made to work for restoration.  Education curriculum should be designed in ways that their grades are linked to conservation actions. No matter which profession they choose, let them go through the rigour of conservation education and actions – in real terms – so that we can aspire to avoid the sixth mass extinction. After all no civilization wants to perish.