14 October 2009

DISPOSING OF FUTURE RESOURSES

"Biodiversity matters for Ethical, Emotional, Environmental and Economic. Ecosystems have intrinsic value. They provide emotional and aesthetic experiences. They offer outstanding opportunities for recreation. They clean our water, purify our air and maintain our soils. They regulate the climate, recycle nutrients and provide us with food. They provide raw materials and resources for medicines and other purposes. They form the foundation on which we build our societies.
...
Human well-being is dependent upon "ecosystem services" provided by nature for free, such as water and air purification, fisheries, timber and nutrient cycling. These are predominantly public goods with no markets and no prices, so their loss often is not detected by our current economic incentive system and can thus continue unabated. A variety of pressures resulting from population growth, changing diets, urbanisation, climate change and many other factors is causing biodiversity to decline, and ecosystems are continuously being degraded. The world’s poor are most at risk from the continuing loss of biodiversity, as they are the ones that are most reliant on the ecosystem services that are being degraded."
from the Biodivercity Policy of the European Commission

reading:

The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB)
by Pavan Sukhdev for the German Federal Ministry for the Environment and the European Commission

The study is evaluating the costs of the loss of biodiversity and the associated decline in ecosystem services worldwide, and comparing them with the costs of effective conservation and sustainable use. It is intended that it will sharpen awareness of the value of biodiversity and ecosystem services and facilitate the development of cost-effective policy responses, notably by preparing a 'valuation toolkit'.

In the foreword of this document Stavros Dimas
(Commissioner for Environment European Commission) says;
"The aim of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and its 190 Contracting Parties is to significantly reduce the loss of biodiversity by 2010. This is an ambitious goal which can only be achieved through the concerted efforts and combined strength of all sections of society. We therefore need both national and international alliances between policy makers, science, the public and business."

Biodiversity makes
ecosystems//communeties//cities more flexible. So how will Malmø plan for the keeping and growth of the richness for the future? And what economic loss/gain is the potential for some sites historically and for the future?

resource : water
green aeras // parks
preserved natural places
transitional spaces
undeveloped spaces

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