Towards Net Positive Impacts on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services

尽管数十年来不断发出警告，评估也越来越严峻，但生物多样性丧失的速度并未减缓，气候变化继续有增无减。要实现全球可持续性，就需要转变思维。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。因此，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重要贡献。通过他自己和他的实验室的工作，陈教授正在解决一个挑衅性的问题：我们如何在一个仍在迅速侵蚀生物多样性和生态系统服务的世界中实现净积极变化？这一关键问题既有社会的成分，也有自然科学的成分：后者是这里的重点。由于持续的经济发展和气候变化，自然及其对人类的贡献可能会发生什么变化？这些变化（由于土地使用变化、污染、收获和其他直接驱动因素）如何以最具成本效益的方式减轻对濒危物种、娱乐、水质、授粉、碳储存和食物供应的影响？是否可以通过现有的减缓备选方案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成果是否需要对经济发展道路进行重大改变？在这项发现补助金研究中，陈教授的实验室小组和同事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。这两个系统代表了完全不同程度的直接人类影响，尽管它们在地理上非常接近：大温哥华是城市，有250万人生活在约3,000平方公里的土地上，而温哥华岛的西海岸是一个300公里长的荒凉海岸，人口很少（约16,000平方公里约12,000人）。这两个系统都以其生物多样性和生态系统服务及其保护而闻名;两者在经济上都在不同程度上依赖于自然。解决这些问题将需要生态系统和生态系统服务建模，空间分析，文献综述，专家启发，和新的生态实地考察。提供的答案将是初步的;它们将只涵盖感兴趣的问题、物种和生态系统服务的一个子集;但它们将为利益相关者和决策者提供一个关键的起点，让他们思考如何将我们的经济和社会系统从地球上的寄生和自我毁灭的角色转变为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.