We can develop and still protect environment

Flip the pages of this publication or scan the television news, and you’ll soon come across a story about looming climate change and the sacrifices apparently demanded of us all to avert its worst affects.

While there is no denying there must be shifts in how we use natural resources, what’s rarely featured in these stories is by doing so we can be better off than if we continue with the ‘business as usual’ mode.

ECOSYSTEMS

Instead, it’s said economic progress — what Kenyans are working so hard to accelerate — is incompatible with protecting environments from permanent damage. No wonder we all stick our heads in the sand and ignore the growing clamour.

But what if we can drive economic growth, meet rising demand for food, energy and water, and still make significant environmental progress? New research published last week suggests that we can.

The study, ‘An Attainable Global Vision for Conservation and Human Well-Being,’ presents a scientific test of a vision for the future where thriving human communities and abundant, healthy ecosystems coexist.

It analysed whether we could advance major conservation goals while meeting the demands of population and economic growth in 2050. It found that we can put the world on a path to sustainability, as long as we make significant changes within the next 10 years.

That sounds ominous. But what’s interesting is that to succeed, those changes do not need to include things like giving up eating meat, or significantly changing the crops we grow, or stopping moving to cities.

SUSTAINABILITY

The study, done by The Nature Conservancy together with the University of Minnesota and 11 other institutions, modelled what the world would look like in 2050 if human development progressed on a ‘business-as-usual’ path compared to a ‘sustainability’ path.

We can see what that means just north of Nairobi in the watershed for the Tana River, where The Nature Conservancy is working with farmers to secure water supplies for the capital’s businesses and homes.

There, business as usual means removing all the remaining tree cover to maximise planting, cultivating right to the edges of rivers and streams, sucking water from those water sources for irrigation, and failing to account for the area’s geography as fields are planted.

Taken together, these actions put thousands of farmers on a fast path to degraded soils, silted rivers, and ever-poorer harvests.

What about the ‘path to sustainability’? Does it require huge sacrifice and compromise?

No. Our work there is as simple as supporting farmers to terrace their fields, dig water pans to store water for irrigation, and protecting river banks to keep streams clear. That way, yields increase, land is protected, and livelihoods are securer.

PRODUCTION

Globally major changes in production patterns are needed, let’s not deny it. But what is important is that we can meet our human demands, while simultaneously advancing several major conservation goals.

Steve Polasky, from the University of Minnesota and the report’s co-author, said: “It will require big shifts in the way we think about and use natural resources, but our study shows it’s possible with expected technology and consumption patterns”.

Heather Tallis, co-author, from The Nature Conservancy, said: “We are not looking at an inevitable trade-off. Expected growth in GDP, population and its demands can be balanced with major improvements for climate and nature.”

By 2050, as Africa’s population doubles to 2.5 billion and the world grows to 10 billion people, demand for natural resources will reach unprecedented levels.

Crop harvests will need to rise by 53%. Energy demand will increase by 56%, and domestic water demand will more than double. Overall, the world’s economic production — which relies on food, energy, and water — will triple.

Without action, this will intensify the harsh impacts of climate change. Leading global development organisations are already highlighting air pollution and water scarcity as the biggest dangers to human health and prosperity.

TEMPERATURE

But the point of the study is that it shows there is another path we can take. How? By adjusting how and where economic activity occurs.

First, we transform energy production from primarily fossil-fuels to renewable and nuclear energy, and site new infrastructure on already-developed land.

Next, we change where within our farmland we grow certain crops, and where others, finding the optimal conditions for each crop. This lowers water demands, and avoids converting fallow or protected land into more and more farm fields.

Finally, with better management of wild fish stocks in our lakes and oceans, we increase what we catch, but sustainably.

This is all doable, and what an incredible difference it will make if we choose the ‘sustainability’ path compared to the ‘business as usual’ path.

Temperature rises could be limited to 1.6°C rather than 3.2°C. Air pollution that could harm 4.9 billion people would instead affect one-tenth that number. Fisheries that would otherwise be almost entirely overfished would be secure.

In Polasky’s words: “Protecting nature and providing water, food and energy to a growing world don’t need to be either-or propositions”. A sustainable path for the future is indeed possible.

This is hugely encouraging. What stands in the way of a sustainable future is not the limits of the planet. It is the limits of our will and creativity.

The writer is Africa Conservation Director, The Nature Conservancy