• by Emilio Godoy (mexico city)
• Thursday, February 18, 2010
• Inter Press Service

The countries of Latin America have made progress in terms of access to clean water and sanitation, but have failed to curb greenhouse gas emissions and deforestation, says a new United Nations report.

'We should put a suitable price tag on the environment,' Alicia Bárcena, executive secretary of the Economic and Social Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), told IPS at the launch of the report in Mexico City Wednesday.

'Public spending (on the environment) in the region is low, equivalent to just under one percent of GDP, and this issue has not been sufficiently addressed by public policy,' she said.

The regional U.N. agency's new report 'Millennium Development Goals: Advances in Environmentally Sustainable Development in Latin America and the Caribbean' assessed the region's progress in meeting the seventh of the eight goals that were adopted by the international community at the U.N. Millennium Summit in 2000.

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) include a 50 percent reduction in extreme poverty and hunger; universal primary education; promotion of gender equality; reduction of child mortality by two-thirds; a three-quarters cut in maternal mortality; combating the spread of HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases; ensuring environmental sustainability; and developing a North-South global partnership for development.

The goals are to be met by a 2015 deadline, from 1990 levels.

The targets included in the seventh MDG - ensuring environmental sustainability - are to halve the number of people without access to safe drinking water and sanitation by 2015; integrate the principles of sustainable development into public policies and programmes; reverse the loss of environmental resources and biodiversity by 2015; and achieve major improvements in the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers by 2020.

'There has been progress in protecting the ozone layer and in expanding coverage of clean water and sewage services. But deforestation must be curtailed, the use of alternative energies must increase, and more adaptation to climate change is needed,' Mara Murillo, acting regional director of the U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP), told IPS at the presentation of the report.

The study, coordinated by ECLAC with the support of a dozen other U.N. agencies, says the total surface of protected areas grew 120 percent in the region between 1990 and 2005, while consumption of ozone-depleting substances declined by 85 per cent.

The Earth's ozone layer protects life from the sun's harmful radiation, but human activities have damaged the shield, and the reduced protection from ultraviolet light leads to higher skin cancer and cataract rates, as well as crop damage.

In the same period, coverage of drinking water and basic sanitation rose by 10 percent and 17 per cent, respectively, in the region, and the proportion of the urban population living in slums shrank 31 percent, the report points out. It adds, however, that 'over 100 million people in Latin America and the Caribbean are still living in unacceptable conditions,' out of a total population of nearly 600 million people.

Nearly 21 percent of the total surface area in Latin America now has the status of protected natural areas, and there are 102 biosphere reserves - established to protect the biological and cultural diversity of a region while promoting sustainable economic development - distributed among 19 countries.

But although countries in the region have adopted policies and measures for biodiversity conservation, 'their biological heritage is threatened by the loss of natural habitats. This is occurring mostly in high mountain areas, tropical drylands, desert ecosystems, cloud forests and tropical moist forests,' the report warns.

Latin America and the Caribbean are home to 40 percent of the world's plant and animal species, approximately 40 percent of tropical forest species and 36 percent of the world’s industrial forests and those cultivated for food.

But the region lost some 69 million hectares of forest from 1990 to 2005, equivalent to seven percent of the total forest cover, which is double the global average deforestation rate, says ECLAC.

The worst scenario was seen in 'Meso-America', an area covering southern Mexico and Central America, where 10 percent of forest cover has been lost.

But it is Brazil and Mexico that have the highest deforestation rates and emit the largest quantities of greenhouse-effect gases.

Greenhouse gases grew 41 percent in the region between 1990 and 2005, with South America showing the highest growth: 55.7 percent.

The report was released at a time of intense drought and heat waves in parts of Mexico, Central America and northern areas in South America, severe flooding in central Mexico, Peru and Bolivia, and heavy rains and flooding in Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay.

'The loss of forests is a problem linked to poverty levels,' said Mexican Secretary (minister) of the Environment and Natural Resources Juan Elvira. 'If we want these resources to be protected, that will only be achieved by means of social development.'

The fight against deforestation is one of the central focuses of the negotiations on a new international climate change treaty, which could be signed in Mexico in late November, at the 16th Conference of the Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP 16), after the failure of COP 15 in Copenhagen in December 2009.

'The lack of progress shows that the development model has failed to overcome the region's problems of poverty and social exclusion, and has not managed to curb the process of environmental deterioration,' said Bárcena, who called for 'a proactive vision' and a move in the direction of 'less carbon intensive economic growth.'

Elvira mentioned the benefits of payment schemes for environmental services, where forest dwellers are rewarded by governments for good environmental practices as they make sustainable use of forests.

In Mexico, 1.2 million hectares are under environmental services payment schemes, and the goal is for a total of 25 million hectares to be protected under such plans by 2012.

'As the region also possesses one third of the world’s forestry biomass and two thirds of the world’s tropical forestry biomass, it has major potential to help mitigate global climate change through the CO2 retention services its forests provide,' the report says.

A new global environmental treaty would put a price tag on standing trees and deforestation, according to the executive secretary of ECLAC.

The study's release coincided with a two-day meeting in the Mexican capital of the U.N. Regional Coordination Mechanism for Latin America and the Caribbean to discuss the MDGs, climate change, the political situation in the region and the U.N.'s contribution to regional cooperation.

The Regional Coordination Mechanism, which emerged in 1998 and is coordinated by the U.N. regional commissions and chaired by the U.N. deputy secretary-general, aims to promote the consistency of U.N. activities in each region.

© Inter Press Service (2010) — All Rights Reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service