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20.07.2016 Science

Human behaviour, biggest threat to our ecosystem - Dr Somda

20.07.2016 LISTEN
By GNA

Wa, July 19, GNA - Dr Jacques Somda, an Agricultural and Environmental Economist, has said negative human behavior is the biggest threat to the survival and sustainability of the ecosystem.

He said the problems of water pollution and environmental degradation among others were as a result of the unfriendly activities of human beings towards the ecosystem.

Dr Somda said this when delivering a paper on: 'Integrating Ecosystems Approach into Natural Resource Management: Research for Development Perspective' at the opening of a two-day seminar in Wa.

He said to address this challenge, there is the need to use science based information to sensitise and help change negative attitudes towards the ecosystem.

Dr Somda, who is also the Programme Officer in charge of Planning, Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), said for livelihoods to improve, human beings must show more interest towards improving the ecosystems because the ecosystems approach added more value to the integrated approach.

He called for a paradigm shift from commodity based to the ecosystem based approach in order to derive the maximum benefits.

Professor Aime J. Nianogo, Regional Director of IUCN, said while development was defined broadly to encompass social, economic, and environmental aspects of growth, the world had until recently tried to ignore the role of nature in development and human well-being.

He said since September 2015, there has been a change as nations across the world adopted the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which were a set of goals to end poverty, protect the planet, and ensure prosperity as part of a new development agenda.

Prof Nianogo said for the world to achieve these goals they have to be able to measure progress, improve capacity to identify, map, measure, and value the benefits that come from ecosystems.

He said this would enable decision makers to better predict the potential effects of their actions on those services; consider the trade-offs among options and choose policies that sustain the services that are essential to human well-being.

The IUCN Regional Director said the ecosystem services-based approach was part of the nature-based solution which IUCN had been streamlining over the world to support development processes at international, national and sub-national levels.

Prof Herbert Dei, Dean of Graduate School of University of Development Studies (UDS), who read a speech on behalf of Professor Gabriel A. Teye, Vice Chancellor of UDS said integrating ecosystem lens into various research topics had an advantage not only in terms of capacity development, but also in the generation of a more comprehensive scientific information.

'Making our MPhil students aware of the potentials of ecosystem-based approaches to research can be seen as seeding future plots for effective mainstreaming of ecosystems and their services into national and local policies and development plans', he said.

The University for Development Studies (UDS) - Wa campus in collaboration with the IUCN - Central and West African Regions organized the forum for Staff and Graduate students of the University.

The UDS, IUCN and the International Centre for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) are carrying out the implementation of the Water, Land and Ecosystem led Research Project 'Improving Livelihoods in Landscapes in the Volta Basin through Strengthening Farmer-Led Approaches to Ecosystem-Based Management.

It is being funded by the Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research (CGIAR).

GNA

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