The environment: The human race is living beyond its means.
A report backed by 1,360 scientists from 95 countries - some of them world leaders in their fields - yesterday warned that almost two-thirds of the natural machinery that supports life on Earth is being degraded by human pressure.
The study contains what its authors call "a stark warning" for the world. The wetlands, forests, savannahs, estuaries, coastal fisheries and other habitats that recycle air, water and nutrients for all living creatures are being irretrievably damaged.
In effect, one species is now a hazard to the other 10 million or so on the planet, and to itself.
"Human activity is putting such a strain on the natural functions of Earth that the ability of the planet's ecosystems to sustain future generations can no longer be taken for granted," it says.
The report, prepared in Washington under the supervision of a board chaired by Robert Watson, the British-born chief scientist at the World Bank and a former scientific adviser to the White House, was launched yesterday at the Royal Society in London. It warns that:
Because of human demand for food, fresh water, timber, fibre and fuel, more land has been claimed for agriculture in the last 60 years than in the 18th and 19th centuries combined.
An estimated 24 per cent of the Earth's land surface is now cultivated.
Water withdrawals from lakes and rivers has doubled in the last 40 years. Humans now use 40 to 50 per cent of all available freshwater running off the land.
At least a quarter of all fish stocks are over-harvested. In some areas, the catch is now less than a hundredth of that before industrial fishing.
Since 1980, about 35 per cent of mangroves have been lost, 20 per cent of the world's coral reefs have been destroyed and another 20 per cent badly degraded.
Deforestation and other changes could increase the risks of malaria and cholera, and open the way for new and so far unknown disease to emerge.
In 1997, a team of biologists and economists tried to put a value on the "business services" provided by nature - the free pollination of crops, the air conditioning provided by wild plants, the recycling of nutrients by the oceans. They came up with an estimate of $33 trillion, almost twice the global gross national product for that year. But after what today's report, Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, calls "an unprecedented period of spending Earth's natural bounty", it was time to check the accounts.
"That is what this assessment has done, and it is a sobering statement with much more red than black on the balance sheet," the scientists warn.
"In many cases, it is literally a matter of living on borrowed time. By using up supplies of fresh groundwater faster than they can be recharged, for example, we are depleting assets at the expense of our children."
Flow from rivers has been reduced dramatically. For parts of the year, the Yellow River in China, the Nile in Africa and the Colorado in North America dry up before they reach the ocean. An estimated 12 per cent of bird species, 25 per cent of mammals and more than 30 per cent of all amphibians are threatened with extinction within the next century. Global warming and climate change could make it increasingly difficult for surviving species to adapt. A growing proportion of the world lives in cities, exploiting advanced technology. But nature, the scientists warn, is not something to be enjoyed at the weekend. Conservation of natural spaces is not just a luxury.
"These are dangerous illusions that ignore the vast benefits of nature to the lives of six billion people on the planet. We may have distanced ourselves from nature, but we rely completely on the services it delivers." - (Guardian service)