Biodiversity loss set to be "on a par" with financial crisis

A new EU-wide system of "eco-system accounting" will be required if Europe is to halt biodiversity loss that threatens to impact the economy on a similar scale to the financial crisis.

The stark message was delivered by the head of the European Environment Agency (EEA) to a European Commission conference on biodiversity in Athens today.

Speaking in her keynote address, EEA executive director Jacqueline McGlade said that if biodiversity loss went on unchecked, the resulting disaster would be "on a par with the current financial crisis".

She also said that while improvements in biodiversity protection had been made, European habitats remain under serious pressure and policy responses have been insufficient to halt the general decline of biodiversity.

She cited a new study from the EEA to be released next month, which warns that the EU will now miss its target to halt biodiversity loss by 2010 and that the overall outlook for European species and habitats remains unfavourable.

McGlade warned that unless the continued decline of European eco-systems is halted, biodiversity loss will have an adverse impact on food and water supplies, as well as other "eco-system services", resulting in a potentially catastrophic blow to the economy.

"The higher operating costs or reduced operating flexibility through diminished or degraded ecosystems will have an impact on a par with the current financial crisis," she warned, arguing that governments and businesses had to improve efforts to understand the financial value associated with biosystems.

Outlining plans for eco-system accounting rules that could require governments and businesses to include biodiversity loss on balance sheets, McGlade said that firms "must include the real value of using our natural capital in what we consume, even if we have pushed its production out of sight and out of mind".

She also called for an extension to the EU's biodiversity strategy that went beyond the current focus on designated protection areas. She said that member states needed to create a "green network" of protection areas and also extend biodiversity regulations to better protect wildlife outside designated habitats.

"Importantly, and as will become more apparent with climate change, species and habitats in need of protection do not – and will not - confine themselves to designated areas," she said. "This has illustrated an important lesson; the external pressures on biodiversity are not uniform, or held in place by geographical designations, and we must not focus all our efforts on preserving islands of biodiversity, while losing nature everywhere else."