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CONTENTS
IN FOCUS
p 2 - When learning science becomes child’s play
NEWS
p 8 - Experts warn ecosystem changes threaten development
p 9 - Tsunami early warning system moves into new phase
p 10 - A project office for IODE
p 11 - Brunei joins UNESCO
p 11 - Chinese Science Academy to watch over World Heritage
p 12 - Grid power tackles brain drain in Balkans
INTERVIEW
p 13 - Howard Moore on UNESCO’s contribution to
making the European Research Area truly pan-European
HORIZONS
p 16 - Assessing how nature supports people in Southern
Africa
p 20 - Buried treasure in the Americas
IN BRIEF
p 20 - Diary
p 20 - New releases
p 20 - Governing bodies
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Roadblocks
can be lifted
If we miss the boat for achieving environmental sustainability
by 2015, we can wave good-bye not only to this Millennium
Goal but also to many others, warns a major study published
on 30 March. ‘Any progress achieved in addressing the
goals of extreme poverty and hunger eradication, improved
health and environmental protection is unlikely to be sustained
if most of the ecosystem services on which humanity relies
continue to be degraded’, says the study, which describes
the ongoing degradation of ecosystem services serves as a
‘roadblock’ to achieving the Millennium Development
Goals agreed upon by world leaders at the United Nations in
2000. According to the study, 60% of the ecosystem services
supporting life on Earth are being degraded or used unsustainably.
The fruit of a four-year global assessment by a team of UN
agencies – including UNESCO – international scientific
bodies and development agencies, the Millennium Ecosystem
Assessment Synthesis Report claims there is now enough evidence
for experts to warn that the ongoing degradation of 15 of
the 24 ecosystem services examined – including freshwater,
capture fisheries, air and water regulation, and the regulation
of regional climate, natural hazards and pests – increases
the likelihood of potentially abrupt changes that will seriously
affect human well-being. This includes the emergence of new
diseases, sudden changes in water quality, creation of ‘dead
zones’ along the coasts, the collapse of fisheries and
shifts in regional climate.
The study confirms what many have long suspected: that it
is the world’s poorest who bear the brunt of ecosystem
changes. The regions facing significant problems of eco-system
degradation – sub-Saharan Africa, Central Asia, some
regions of Latin America and parts of south and Southeast
Asia – are also those finding it hardest to reach the
Millennium Goals. In sub-Saharan Africa, for example, the
number of poor is forecast to rise from 315 million in 1999
to 404 million by 2015. Southern Africa is unlikely to be
spared, as we shall see from one of the sub-regional reports
for the Millennium Assessment, reproduced in this issue.
As this issue goes to press, the G8 countries have just agreed
to write off the debt of 18 of the world’s poorest countries:
Benin, Bolivia, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guyana, Honduras,
Madagascar, Mali, Mauritania, Mozambique, Nicaragua, Niger,
Rwanda, Senegal, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia. A further nine
may soon join them. Freed from the stranglehold of debt, this
first group of countries will now dispose of $1.5 billion
in annual savings from debt repayments to invest in such areas
as education, health and the environment. It could make all
the difference to their chances of meeting the Millennium
Goals.
W.
Erdelen
Assistant Director-General for Natural Sciences
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UNESCO
Scientific 
