The four “foundation” reports of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) were released yesterday. These reports examine Current State and Trends; Scenarios; Policy Responses; and Multi-Scale Assessments.
A summary report, containing the Summaries for Decision-makers of the four technical assessment volumes, was also released. The reports contain the detailed scientific assessment (including literature citations) on which the MA synthesis reports are based.
The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment was a four-year long global assessment of the consequences of ecosystem change for human well-being and the options for responding to those changes. It involved 1,300 leading international scientists from 95 nations. Four scientists from Nepal - Motilal Ghimire (Tribhuvan University), Narpat Singh Jodha (ICIMOD), Kedar Lal Shrestha (Institute for Development Innovation) and Jianchu Xu (ICIMOD) - were involved in authoring the reports.
The four new volumes represent the scientific backbone and guidance for the work of politicians, scientists and environmentalists in the coming decade. Conservationists will find useful analysis of the state of different ecosystems, including wetlands, drylands, and forests, and potential policy responses to reverse the decline of the services these ecosystems provide.
Following are some of the chapters of the reports that may be of interest to Nepalese forestry community.
Volume 1: Current State & Trends
Chapter 4: Biodiversity
Chapter 9: Timber, fuelwood and Fiber Ecosystem Services
Chapter 21: Forest and Woodland Systems
Chapter 24: Mountain Systems
Volume 2: Scenarios
Chapter 10: Biodiversity Across Scenarios
Volume 3: Policy Responses
Chapter 5: Biodiversity
Chapter 8: Wood, Fuel-wood and Non Wood Forest Products
Source: IUCN News