Towards Net Positive Impacts on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services

尽管几十年来的警告和日益严峻的评估，生物多样性丧失的速度并没有减缓，气候变化仍在继续，有增无减。要实现全球可持续发展，就需要转变思维方式。几十年来，科学家和政策制定者一直在努力减缓生物多样性的下降、栖息地的丧失和气候变化的速度。事实证明，这种旨在减缓损失的方法是不够的。出于这个原因，在联合国最近的全球生物多样性评估中，陈凯教授和其他人呼吁国际社会关注自然净积极变化的目标及其对人类的关键贡献。通过他自己和他的实验室的工作，陈教授正在回答一个具有挑衅性的问题：在一个生物多样性和生态系统服务仍在迅速侵蚀的世界里，我们如何实现它们的净积极变化？这个关键问题既有社会科学的组成部分，也有自然科学的组成部分：后者是这里的重点。由于持续的经济发展和气候变化，自然界及其对人类的贡献可能会发生哪些变化？如何才能最经济有效地缓解这些变化(由于土地利用变化、污染、收获和其他直接驱动因素)，以最具成本效益地保护濒危物种、娱乐、水质、授粉、碳储存和食物供应？是否可以通过现有的缓解办法减少预期的负面影响，或者实现生物多样性和生态系统服务的净积极结果是否需要对经济发展道路进行重大改变？在这项探索基金的研究中，陈教授的实验室团队和同事们将在两个系统中提出这些问题：温哥华大都会地区和温哥华岛西海岸。这两个系统代表着截然不同的直接人类影响程度，尽管它们在地理上非常接近：温哥华大都会是城市，250万人居住在大约3000平方公里的土地上，而温哥华岛的西海岸是一片300公里长的荒野海岸，几乎没有人(大约12000人居住在大约16000平方公里)。这两个系统都以其生物多样性和生态系统服务以及保护而闻名；两个系统在经济上都不同程度地依赖于自然。回答这些问题将需要生态系统和生态系统服务建模、空间分析、文献回顾、专家启发和新的生态实地工作。提供的答案将是初步的；它们将仅涵盖感兴趣的问题、物种和生态系统服务的一部分；但它们将为利益攸关方和决策者提供一个关键的起点，以思考如何将我们的经济和社会制度从地球上寄生和自我破坏的角色转变为互惠互利和可持续的角色。

Despite decades of warnings and increasingly dire assessments, the rate of biodiversity loss has not slowed and climate change continues, unabated. To achieve global sustainability will require a shift in thinking. For decades, scientists and policymakers have strived to slow the decline of biodiversity, the loss of habitat, and the rate of climate change. This approach, of aiming to slow losses, is proving to be insufficient. For this reason, within the UN's recent global biodiversity assessment, Professor Kai Chan and others have called international attention to the goal of net-positive change for nature and its crucial contributions to humanity. Through his own work and that of his lab, Professor Chan is addressing a provocative question: how do we navigate towards net positive change in biodiversity and ecosystem services in a world that is still rapidly eroding them? This crucial question has both social and natural-science components: the latter is the focus here. What changes in nature and its contributions to people are likely to occur due to ongoing economic development and climate change? And how can these changes (due to land-use change, pollution, harvest, and other direct drivers) be mitigated most cost-effectively for species at risk, recreation, water quality, pollination, carbon storage, and food provision? Can the expected negative impacts be lessened via existing mitigation options, or would attaining net-positive outcomes for biodiversity and ecosystem services require substantial changes to the path of economic development? In this Discovery Grant research, Professor Chan's lab group and colleagues will ask these questions in two systems: the Metro Vancouver Region, and the West Coast of Vancouver Island. The two systems represent starkly different degrees of direct human impact, although they are very close geographically: Metro Vancouver is urban, with 2.5 million people living in ~3,000 km2, while the West Coast of Vancouver Island is a 300 km stretch of wild coast with few people (~12,000 in ~16,000 km2). Both systems are known for their biodiversity and ecosystem services, and for their conservation; both are economically dependent on nature, to varying degrees. Answering these questions will require ecosystem and ecosystem service modelling, spatial analysis, literature review, expert elicitation, and new ecological fieldwork. The answers provided will be preliminary; they will cover only a subset of the issues, species, and ecosystem services of interest; but they will provide a critical starting point for stakeholders and decision-makers to contemplate what it will take to shift our economic and social systems from a parasitic and self-destructive role on planet Earth to a mutualistic and sustainable one.