Burlington Standard

In July, the Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IBPES),  issued a voluminous report identifying 50,000 wild species that are essential to daily life of half the world’s population.

It took four years of work by 85 experts and 200 contributing authors to produce the “IPBES Assessment Report on the Sustainable Use of Wild Species,” a comprehensive report that enumerates essential species threatened by the global biodiversity crisis.

One of the three co-chairs of the report is Marla R. Emery, a 31-year U.S. Forest Service veteran who is an adjunct professor in the Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources and is also affiliated with the department of geography and geosciences. The project absorbed most of the final four years of Emery’s career before her retirement this spring.

“I was co-chair with a French marine biologist and a South African ecologist,” she said, illustrating the international scope of the project and the diversity of expertise.

Emery identifies herself as a human geographer with expertise that straddles international relations and science. She speaks fluent Spanish and French, and has spent much of her career studying uses of wild plants and mushrooms in rural and urban settings in the U.S., with an emphasis on New Americans and First Americans.

“Rather than managing and writing for scientists, I decided I wanted to be a scientist who focuses on policy and how people and ecosystems interact,” she said.

After completing her doctorate in geography at Rutgers she began her career at the agency's Northern Research Station in Burlington.

One in five rely on wild species for income and food

The summary of the report was approved in July by representatives of the 139 member states of IPBES in Bonn, Germany. The report states that 10,000 species of plants and animals are harvested directly for food worldwide, and seventy percent of the world’s poor are directly dependent on wild species. One in five people depend on wild plants, algae and fungi for food and income. Nearly 2.5 billion people rely on wood for cooking.

People who live in developing countries are most at risk from unsustainable uses of wild species, the report says. With lack of alternatives, they are often driven to further exploit species that are already at risk of extinction. But Emery says loss of wild species would have far reaching repercussions for everyone.

“From the fish that we eat, to medicines, cosmetics, decoration and recreation, dependence on wild species is much more prevalent than most people realize,” Emery said.

Having lived and worked in Vermont for much of her career, she can provide local examples of wild crops in our home state that are vital to our lives and economies. One example is the sugar maple.

“Climate change is a big threat to the future of the species. Sugar maples are going to have to move north in order to adapt to rising temperatures,” she said. “Altitude and latitude are kind of substitutes for each other, so we’re approaching the point where maples may only grow in the northern part of the state, or as remnant populations at higher elevations.”

The effects would be wide-reaching, impacting not only maple syrup production but related industries like Vermont’s foliage season, a magnet for tourists in the fall.

“One of our tasks was to identify conditions that lead to sustainable use of wild species and in order to do that, we have to also identify the conditions that make use of wild species unsustainable in a particular area,” she said. “Climate change is one of the big threats, along with land use changes and trade.”

Hopeful stories

The report is not meant to be an epitaph for wild species—it cites many examples of recent successes in preserving species at various scales. For instance, two species of fish, the Pirarucu and the Atlantic bluefin tuna, have been rescued from overexploitation and are being harvested sustainably today.

Pirarucu are a group of freshwater species that have played a vital role in the Amazon for centuries, the report states. But modern fishing techniques led to overfishing and protective measures imposed by Brazilian authorities had little effect.

In 1998, community-based management was introduced in some river communities in the Mamirauá Reserve. Fisherman used their traditional knowledge to protect fishing grounds and submitted a management plan to the government. The resulting approach was widely adopted and resulted in the recovery of the species.

The story of the Atlantic bluefin tuna is similarly encouraging. The species has been harvested for centuries, but the rise of the sashimi market during the 1980s generated sharply increased demand. “The failure of bluefin tuna management at that time was partly due to the multilateral nature of the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas,” the report states.

In the 2000’s environmental NGOs called attention to the problem and fisheries managers began to listen to scientific advice. The Atlantic bluefin tuna rebuilding plan included a reduction in the length of the fishing season, an increase in minimum fish size, increased monitoring and reduction of quotas. Today, the Atlantic bluefin tuna is being sustainably harvested again.

A key lesson, Emery says, is crafting species-specific policy solutions that are informed by scientific research and time-honored harvesting methods.

“Top down, command-and-control approaches don’t work well,” she says. “We really need to be involving both local and indigenous communities, and scientists who understand the wild species in the social context. Crafting solutions for maintaining species can be done successfully, and has been done successfully.”

At stake, says Emery, is not just sustainability of commodities for human consumption, but cultural identity. In Vermont, the maple tree provides products that are important to the local economy. But losing maple syrup would be losing something fundamental about what it means to be a “Vermonter.”

“In order to live sustainably, we are really going to have to change the way we think about the relationship between human beings and nature,” Emery said. “We're going to have to stop thinking of human beings as separate from nature. Instead, we need to begin to think about ourselves as citizens of nature, with responsibilities as well as rights. It can take care of us if we take care of it.”

Original source can be found here.