The NAFTA Commission Report Sounds the Alarm
Sunday, 11 January 2009

The study, to be released today by the Commission for Environmental Co-operation of North America warns of a "widespread crisis not confined to any one country or region." 

This comes despite a dramatic increase in the total area of protected lands across the continent. 
"North America's diminishing biological diversity has profound consequences. Because the loss is irreversible - species that are lost are lost forever - the potential impact on the human condition, on the fabric of the continent's living systems, and on the process of evolution is immense," according to the report. 

The report identifies the plight of the monarch butterfly and the northern codfish, saying they are threatened by pollution, human encroachment on their natural habitats and aggressive harvesting practices. 

The Montreal-based commission was set up to encourage the partners of the North American Free Trade Agreement - Canada, the United States and Mexico - to protect their shared environment. The sweeping report, entitled The North American Mosaic, also includes other warnings about threats to fresh water and air quality and the dangers of climate change and destruction of old growth forests. 

Janine Ferretti, the commission's executive director, said it's important to look at environmental problems from a continental perspective because they extend past political boundaries. "There is enormous variety in the levels of protection afforded to these areas. Some that are deemed 'protected' actually encourage development activities that put biodiversity at great risk." 

According to the study, half of the continent's most diverse eco-regions have been severely degraded. Meanwhile, there are at least 235 threatened species of mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians in North America - more than a quarter of them shared by at least two NAFTA countries. 

The report warns of vulnerable shared groundwater supplies along the U.S.-Mexico border and notes Canada is releasing the untreated sewage waste of some 1.6 million people into water bodies. Governments must also put an end to "perverse subsidies" that harm the environment by encouraging high consumption, it says, pointing to major assistance to the fossil fuel industry, hydroelectric power and water systems

North Americans must radically alter the way they calculate gross domestic product to take into account the use of each country's environmental wealth, says a hard-hitting new report from the international environmental watchdog set up under NAFTA. 

That's because North America's natural resources - from soil and forests to water and fish, and even clean air - are being consumed at a rate that cannot be sustained. The watchdog of the North American free-trade agreement is calling for a way to assess how long such use can continue before it's too late. 

"The health of an environment that sustains 394 million people and an economy worth $9-trillion (U.S.) is at risk," concludes the first state-of-the-nations report from the North American Commission for Environmental Co-operation, to be published Monday. It adds: "North Americans are faced with the paradox that many activities on which the North American economy is based impoverish the environment on which our well-being ultimately depends." 

As it stands, the internationally accepted system of national accounts fails to predict how long a country's environmental capital can be used, and at what rate, before parts of it collapse, the report says. "Unlike human or fabricated capital such as buildings and machines, the depreciation of natural capital is not written off against the value of its production," the 100-page report says. 

The planet's assets can be likened to a bank account, it says "By 'spending' natural capital without replenishing it, or by damaging processes and living systems that cannot be fixed by technology, we are living off our capital rather than the interest," the report says. 

That this urging should come from an environmental group set up by the NAFTA partners, Canada, the United States and Mexico, is a measure of how seriously the new economic research on this topic is being taken. "Because of the research, we are becoming more fluent and aware of the part that ecosystems play," said Janine Ferretti, the CEC's executive director. "They're the backbone of prosperity." 

Mexico has done a pilot study on calculating an ecological GDP. It showed, for example, that Mexico's GDP calculated the regular way logged an annual increase of 2.2 per cent from 1985 to 1992. The ecological GDP showed an average of 1.3 per cent because it took into account the depletion of natural assets. 

Both Canada and the United States have examined integrating measures of the economy and environment. The United States launched a study of the costs and savings of the Clean Air Act over 20 years, for example. Implementing the act cost $524-billion (U.S.), but saved the economy more than $6-trillion (U.S.). 

The fate of the cod fishery on Canada's East Coast is a perfect example of what happens when natural capital is not taken into account. Past governments encouraged the use of large fleets to catch and process fish to build up Newfoundland's economy.
Last Updated ( Tuesday, 17 February 2009 )