Sustainable development

This synopsis has been produced to highlight the core aspects of the first three volumes of Natural Capital of Mexico, which gives us an overview to identify priorities for future attention, new research areas and options for the conservation and sustainable management of biodiversity in Mexico.

The key message of this publication is that the occurrence of the global economic and financial crisis and the interrelated climate, food, and water crises offers a window of opportunity to embark on a path of more resilient and sustainable economic growth. The key challenge is to avoid responding to the crises with measures that perpetuate economically, socially and environmentally unsustainable production and consumption patterns.

The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment emphasises the inter-relationship between ecosystem health and human well-being. Most ecosystems are severely degraded and the services that they provide to society are diminishing. As a result, important targets for biodiversity and development are unlikely to be met. Community conservation processes are often isolated and marginalised from mainstream conservation efforts.

Current trends in fossil-fuel use and inefficient land use will lead to large global environmental problems with respect to climate change and biodiversity loss. Technical and economically feasible options are available to meet the challenge to avoid these problems. The main issue is that of creating institutional and policy conditions for a more sustainable economy.

La degradación ambiental, producto de un conjunto de actividades económicas, entre ellas la agricultura, produce efectos negativos sobre la salud de las personas comprometiendo, de esta forma, el desarrollo sostenible. Éste es uno de los enfoques presentados en la publicación, como resultado de varios años de investigación adelantada por los autores, en tres localidades de producción agrícola venezolana.