Sustainable Ecosystems
We are consuming the foundations of our existence - the forests and the oceans, freshwater systems and the soil, at a rate faster than our planet can replenish.
Local, regional and national policies that address the degradation of ecosystems exist and they work: we recognise that these exemplary policies need to be sought out, promoted and scaled up.
Through our Future Policy Award on Food Security in 2009, Biodiversity in 2010, Forests in 2011 and Oceans and Coasts in 2012, we have been identifying and celebrating policies that successfully conserve or manage our vital ecosystems. After the Awards, we begin the political engagement phase with parliamentary hearings to raise awareness, share lessons learnt and spread best practice policies among legislators.
Below you will find more information on all our work under the Sustainable Ecosystems theme, with a detailed analysis on the linkages between climate and agriculture, plus how we are following up on previous years’ Future Policy Award.
- © Resource Centre on Urban Agriculture and Food Security (RUAF)
The agriculture and food sector is not only a victim of climate change, it is also a major contributor to the acceleration of global warming.
This section of the WFC website explains the mutual relationship between food and agriculture and climate change.
How does climate change affect agriculture?
How does agriculture contribute to climate change?
How does the global food system affect climate change?
Consequently, food and agriculture provide for a huge climate mitigation potential. The development of climate-resilient farming systems is a major challenge for policy makers and a comparatively new discipline. We need policies for a global food system based on biology, not chemistry, one that will feed us indefinitely if we treat the soil right. To this end, the WFC website presents a selection of best policy concepts.
Please download our brochure on Cultivating the Future: Food in the Age of Climate Change
for additional information.
In 2009 the Future Policy Award celebrated successful policies for Food Security and the Human Right to Food. Policies were nominated that create fair and sustainable food systems, working towards ensuring access to adequate food for all citizens. Read more about the Future Policy Award and download the brochure Celebrating the Belo Horizonte Food Security Programme.
With financial support from the Schweisfurth Foundation.
Biodiversity
Biodiversity encompasses ecosystems, species and genetic diversity. We are currently losing species 100 to 1000 times faster than what is seen in the fossil record due to habitat destruction, pollution and climate change. In recent decades, even some common species such as bumblebees have been declining, species that we rely on to sustain food production and for basic ecosystem functions.
In 2010, governments agreed upon a Strategic Plan for Biodiversity for 2011-2020, with targets for conservation and sustainable use at the tenth Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD COP-10). The World Future Council has a strategic partnership with the Convention on Biological Diversity and is committed to enabling parliaments to implement the CBD targets. We collectively failed to meet our 2010 target to reduce the rate of biodiversity loss, so the WFC aims to inform parliamentary processes to assist in meeting the CBD targets for 2020.
Following up on the Future Policy Award on Biodiversity
In 2010, Costa Rica’s Biodiversity Law won the Future Policy Award on Biodiversity as it demonstrated clear commitment to the three objectives of the Convention on Biological Diversity: conservation of biodiversity, sustainable use of resources, and the fair and equitable sharing of the benefits arising from the utilisation of genetic resources.
Please see here for more information on the winners of the 2010 Future Policy Award.
In cooperation with the Global Legislators Organisation (GLOBE) International, the WFC is implementing the “GLOBE-WFC Visionary Biodiversity Law Programme”. The first phase of the programme will culminate in a Biodiversity Session at the World Summit of Legislators hosted by GLOBE in Rio de Janeiro to complement the governmental process at Rio+20. The second phase of the programme will be a Biodiversity Session at the Legislators Biodiversity Forum, to be held in parallel with CBD COP-11 in Hyderabad, India this October.
Following on from the legislators’ forums, national and regional parliamentary hearings will be convened to promote the winning policies and support parliaments by providing the tools to exercise effective control on executive bodies for the implementation of the biodiversity targets.
Publications:
Future Policy Award 2010 - Celebrating the world's best biodiversity policies
Crafting Visionary Biodiversity Laws: Costa Rica's Biodiversity Law 1998 English | Spanish
Crafting Future Just Biodiversity Laws and Policies
Identification and Assessment of the Access to Genetic Resources and Benefit Sharing
Sustainable Forests
Rwanda’s National Forest Policy won the 2011 Future Policy Award as the world’s most inspiring and innovative forest policy. Despite continuing population and land pressures, Rwanda is on course to reaching its goal of increasing forest cover to 30 per cent of total land area, achieving a major reversal in the trend of declining forest cover. Forest cover has already increased by 37 per cent since 1990. Massive reforestation and planting activities that promoted indigenous species and involved the local population were undertaken, and new measures such as agroforestry and education on forest management were implemented. The award was celebrated in New York, USA in co-operation with the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, the UN Forum on Forests, and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN.
Oceans and Coasts
Our oceans and coasts are under severe threat from human activities: overfishing and destructive fishing practices, habitat destruction, pollution, climate change and ocean acidification.
The World Future Council recognizes that without urgent political action managing these activities, future generations may not benefit from vital ecosystem services such as food security or storm protection derived from marine environments.
Future Policy Award 2012 on Oceans and Coasts
This year, the World Future Council’s Future Policy Award is celebrating exemplary policies for Oceans and Coasts. We have requested nominations from international organisations and leading ocean experts and will be announcing the winning policies at the United Nations Headquarters in September 2012.
The winners of the 2012 Future Policy Award will be presented the Awards at a ceremony in Hyderabad on 16 October which will be attended by invited high-level representatives from government, business, international organisations, civil society and the media. A brochure about the Award and the winners will be produced and presented at the ceremony.
Please see the Future Policy Award page for more information: www.worldfuturecouncil.org/future_policy_award.html
Bottom Trawling: A case study of Future Injustice
The Future Justice team has highlighted bottom-trawling, one of the most destructive forms of fishing practices as a case of Future Injustice as it damages the seabed, results in high levels of by-catch and devastates local fisheries and the livelihoods of the local fisher communities. Please see here for more information on bottom-trawling and its impacts.
Earlier work on Oceans by the World Future Council:
In 2010 the World Future Council, in collaboration with the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the Center for Ocean Solutions and the Okeanos Foundation hosted a two-day Pacific planning workshop in San Francisco, California to address the four major threats to the Pacific Ocean: overfishing and exploitation, habitat destruction, climate change and pollution.
The workshop, which was a part of the opening plenary of the World Oceans Conference, brought together high-level officials from the governments of Kiribati and California, joined by representatives from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), academia and civil society to confront the challenges facing the Pacific Islands.
The governments and partners planned the next steps for collaborative action under the Pacific Ocean 2020 Challenge that calls to all nations on the Pacific Ocean rim and Pacific Island nations to attain sustainable management the Pacific Ocean by 2020. For more information on Pacific Ocean 2020 please see www.pacificocean2020.org.
