Several signals warn that the planet's present environmental crisis is not a temporary "bottle neck" due to particular dynamics of problems that have overcome temporary the human response capability. The modification of the earth's atmosphere on an unknown scale since million of years, the global collapse of some fisheries, and the increase of the contemporary rate of species extinction in a factor superior to one thousand with respect of the prehistoric rate, seem to indicate that the growing human activity is reaching some ultimate natural threshold.
Authorized version of an article published in the Chilean magazine Revista Mensaje Nº 483, october 1999.
To cope with this critical environment situation, the global community has two possible approaches. One is to "smother a fire", or betting that, with time, the source of the fire will be controlled. We could call this the reactive approach; it is based on trusting that, eventually, technological development will be the key to the solution for problems that seem unsolvable in the present.
Then there is the proactive approach, which is to recognize the depth of the crisis and design innovative environmental policies to cope with the current problem as well as emergent problems. This approach allows to rethink where we are going as a global civilization.
From a language philosophy perspective, a proactive approach can arise from a breakdown. In this sense a breakdown is a situation in which certain assumptions are drastically broken. A crisis suddenly 'reveals' what before was invisible in its operation. If we declare a breakdown, if we are aware of it and we take responsibility for the associated revelation process, then interesting ways to cope constructively with the crisis emerge and we can redesign the future creatively because of the crisis. On the other hand, if the breakdown is not interpreted as such, the situation that generates it is perceived as a simple obstacle, perhaps dangerous or irritating, but temporary. Thus we miss the opportunity to redesign our future. We remain blind to a problem so serious that we will not have a second chance to cope with it with all the options available to us now.
a d v e r t i s e m e n t THE BREAKDOWN In this context, the planet's present environmental crisis can be seen as a serious breakdown. In effect, human pressure on the natural environment - to extract resources as well as to eliminate waste - has pushed nature in such a way that some ultimate natural limits are being exceeded.
Perhaps the most delicate threshold that modern society is surpassing is the planet's capability for maintaining the diversity of biological species, its bio-diversity. This bio-diversity is the result of 3,800 million years of evolution. That is, each natural species with which we share the present can be seen as a long term "biological solution". From a human perspective we cannot forget that our own species has co-evolved with all others, so a good part of our basic biological needs can be satisfied only by our interactions with the natural world. Think, for example, about nourishment and substances for medicinal use. At the same time, the maintenance of delicate biophysical processes vital to human activity, such as water quality, soil protection, nutrients cycle, regulation of hydrologic overflow, among others, are only possible thanks to the adequate functioning of natural systems. However, many of the values of bio-diversity tend to be hidden from the instrumental-reductionist outlook of contemporary civilization.
Today, biologic diversity and its values - be they intrinsic or instrumental - are seriously threatened. According to scientific estimates, Earth is experiencing the largest rate of biological extinction in 65 million years. And this is the direct consequence of the alteration of natural habitats resulting from human activity, especially during the last two centuries. Currently, only 3% of the surface of the planet is protected with bio-diversity conservation goals, a percentage estimated insufficient by the scientific community. If the modification of natural spaces continues, it is estimated that - even if the protected planet surface increased to 10% of the total - by the middle of the 21st century, only 50% of the total biological species that exist today would survive.
The devastation of natural spaces in Europe in the last 200 years and in USA in the last century have caused these nations to include developments in their future biological conservation agenda that were unthinkable only a few decades ago. Aggressive laws to protect species in danger, ecological restoration of natural areas damaged by economic growth, and a general revaluation of rural space, are part of these new trends.
Present responses to the crisis are likely due to the lack of awareness that in the end, this crisis can have a negative effect on our global productive program. Think of the dangerous vulnerability of a productive base diminished biologically to cope with alterations on a large scale such as climatic change, plague propagation, or others, where adaptation mechanisms of natural ecosystems have no substitute. But also there is a less instrumental motivation. It appears that human beings cannot tolerate the idea of a world without natural spaces.
THE CHILEAN BILL Let's examine the situation in Chile. The declared strategic priority for the country during the last decades has been economic growth. Bio-diversity conservation has had no relevance in this context. A telling example is the valuation of natural spaces. The Chilean economy has become dynamic based on an export sector that depends to a great degree on natural resources with low added value. However, the country still doesn't incorporate into an environmental accounting system a measure of how and how much of our national natural patrimony we lose every year.
In other words, the country doesn't know how much of its annual economic growth from exports is "environmentally sustainable". Furthermore, when by the end of 1995 an incipient Unit of Environmental Accounting from the Banco Central tried to advance the subject and submitted a negative sector report with respect to the situation of the native forest , the official government and private sector reaction was, first, to disqualify its authors and finally to close the very Unit of Environmental Accounting. This is equivalent to "killing the messenger that bring the bad news" instead of dealing with the news
The direct consequence of the low priority that bio-diversity conservation has in the country is that at least 56% of mammals, 58% of reptiles, 79% of amphibians and 100% of fishes of the continental waters in Chile are in some degree of conservation danger. With respect to the flora, from the 85 vegetal formations recognized in the country, 22% are completely absent and 31% are insufficiently represented in the national system of protected areas.
In contrast with countries more advanced in these matters, there are no laws in Chile to protect species in danger. As a consequence, the official information about the state of conservation of flora and fauna is outdated - from the first half of the 80s - and, furthermore, these data do not form any program with measures to improve the situation.
Faced with the bio-diversity crisis existent in Chile, we can exercise our imagination with respect to "what would be visible" if we declared the situation a breakdown.We would see, for example, that Chile's natural patrimony has valuable particularities. CHANGED The desert, the Andes and the Pacific Ocean have been barriers for biological interchange with other South American territories for several million years. Thus, continental Chile has the character of a "geographic island", that is to say, a privileged place for the development of singular type of organism. As a consequence, 39% of mammals, 74 % of reptiles, 76 % of amphibians, 100% of fresh water fishes and 74% of its arbor and shrubs flora are exclusive to this territory. This represents a "planet treasure" of bio-diversity.
From this distinctive natural patrimony emerge attractive future sources of possible income. These possibilities would become real only if the country recognizes the depth of the crisis at an opportune time, and develops a daring strategy to protect its diversity.
For example, the relatively high availability of untouched natural spaces in Chile is very appealing for the European tourist and others, who have a high average daily expense during their stay. According to a recent survey, 59% of Europeans who declare their intention to come to Chile express that their main motivation to visit is "its natural beauty, it mountains, and pristine landscapes". If the country takes advantage of this, the tourism in natural spaces (the sector of largest growth in the growing industry of tourism at an international level), could become one of the export pillars of the country. In many cases, organized ecotourism can be competitive with productive extractive projects, with the advantage that ecotourism doesn't consume bio-diversity and that, in general, has a relatively high multiplier effect on local economies. Furthermore, the relative value of untouched natural spaces will grow exponentially in the next decades as their availability in other countries diminishes or even disappears.
INTERGENERATIONAL EQUITY Coming back to the global environmental scene, perhaps the most important positive sign in recent years is the concept "intergenerational equity" in the definition of sustainable development by the international community. This recognizes as environmentally sustainable only the productive activities that are carried out without compromising the capabilities of future generations to satisfy their own needs. Whether this recognition is being fully applied or not is another discussion, but the idea itself represents a generous commitment, since it considers others' well-being; "the other" being the generation to come, an "other" that is not even present and that cannot promise us anything in return.
Summing up, it is not an instrumental commitment but authentically generous. This idea, which is in the very heart of the concept "sustainable development" is a hope that better times are possible in biological conservation matters in Chile and the planet.
However, we must remember that, as with other environmental challenges, the challenge of conserving bio-diversity is a race against time. And a late reaction can result in irreparable loss. As Baird Callicott (the US environmental philosopher) said, "If we change the fossil fuels by diverse methods of solar energy and allow the forests of the world to regenerate, the "hot house" effect can be reverted; if we stop producing chlorofluorocarbons, the ozone layer will regenerate at some moment, but the extinction [of biological species], as the word says, is forever".
The warning of Aldo Leopold at the beginning of the 20th century is as true today as it was the day it was stated: With bio-diversity we should behave as we would with a valuable puzzle, that is, we should not lose the pieces before we know what figure it is figure to build with them
