First of 2 parts
The Earth is in an environmental tailspin that threatens the future of billions of people, according to a major new report from the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP).
To rescue itself, the seventh edition of the Global Environment Outlook says humanity needs to make dramatic changes to the way it runs its economies, uses raw materials, manages waste, generates power, produces and consumes food and treats the environment.
Sound like an impossible task? Not necessarily, say the report’s authors, a collection of nearly 300 multidisciplinary scientists.
Several communities around the world have already started to remake crucial systems, with the early returns showing it is possible to protect the environment and create new opportunities.
“Too often people look at it as a binary choice: the environment or the economy,” says Maarten Kappelle, Chief of Service in UNEP’s Office of Science. “But you can build an economy that benefits people and planet. In fact, that’s happening everywhere from Burkina Faso to India–right now.”
Here are four examples of this kind of transformation in action.
Marrying conservation and growth
For years, many of India’s Advasi Indigenous Peoples–who live in and around a world-famous Periyar Tiger Reserve–had struggled with unemployment and poverty.
But in the late 1990s, the government and donor groups launched a wide-ranging project that twinned development and conservation. Many of the 200,000 Advasi community members were taught how to become wildlife guides and forest rangers. That helped both protect the reserve’s endangered big cats and kick off an eco-tourism boom in the region that provided jobs and stability for many local families.
Capitalizing on electronic waste
Through much of the 1990s, China was a dumping ground for electronic waste, a lot of it illegally imported from abroad. Everything from old computers to refrigerators flooded landfills and informal dumpsites, leaching toxic chemicals into the country’s soils and water. (To be continued)
UNEP News
