How can we satisfy the (increasingly conflicting) needs to maintain global human well-being and to maintain global biodiversity (including its “option values” for the future)?

Earth system research focuses on “observing, understanding, reconstructing and predicting global environmental changes involving interactions between land, atmosphere, water, ice, biosphere, societies, technologies and economies”. The question I pose is perhaps the most fundamental of the “interactions” questions relating to global environmental change. It matches well the Vision’s goals to identify “research questions that… would provide answers that are relevant to the needs of decision-makers concerned with global environmental change and human well-being”. This question might have been listed only under “biodiversity” – but I list it as “Interdisciplinary” because it is an multidisciplinary challenge, and perhaps calls for new institutions and programs over the next decade. At same time, it makes sense that “biodiversity” is highlighted because biodiversity underpins present and future benefits and services.

This question is important in next decade because there is a narrow window of opportunity to find effective solutions. Answers to the question would serve the needs of decision-makers in addressing the increasing “tensions” between local versus global values; current versus future benefits; known elements of diversity versus unknown elements, etc. There are good opportunities to make a difference in the next decade. For example, emerging new technologies for rapid biodiversity discovery and assessment, if well-coordinated regionally and globally, might help us to integrate biodiversity values into interdisciplinary conservation planning, and into policy frameworks such as “beyond-2010”.

One comment

1. Kalense says:

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   The biggest of all the Grand Challenges humanity faces (and has ever faced) is how to establish and maintain a balanced and mutually beneficial relationship between humans and the rest of the living world. The rewards of success are huge; the penalty for failure will be at best uncomfortable.

   My only regret is that it is difficult to formulate this question in a way that emphasises that humans are part of biodiveristy – that our societies, cultures and economies are part of the natural world and cannot survive as a cancer.

   I would perhaps go a little further than you when you say you might have listed the question under “biodiversity” but chose “Interdisciplinary” instead. I strongly believe that in seeing biodiversity as a topic or subject of study, we isolate it and somehow place it into our mental universe as a thing apart, something we can fix independently of everything else. It is hardly enough to say “interdisciplinary” – what we need is holistic thought, understanding and action.