A prospective is an anticipation of the future.
Prior to the prospective, it is convenient to define the elements on which it is based and the foreseeable state of continuing current trends, which act as prospective support.
Biodiversity is defined by the Convention on Biological Diversity as “all the variety of life forms from the genetic sphere, that is, a variety of genes or genetic forms, to the ecological sphere: variety of ecosystems; passing, logically, through the sphere of species "the variety of species".
Water is the vital resource for humanity as it is the main component of living beings since between 65% and 95% of the weight of most living forms is water, this molecule was also the support where life arose It is also the only solvent capable of transporting the nutrients of the soil, plant and animal network, which nourishes all forms of life.
Knowledge has as many definitions as points of view or approach. Here those related to its synonym intellectual capital are preferred, which in information societies, such as the one we live in, is the most important part of society and is made up of the knowledge and preparation that people have in mind., which is equivalent to the stock of knowledge of science.
Concluding: biodiversity is synonymous with any form of variety of life; water is a simple and strange molecule considered as the liquid of life and knowledge is an acquired mental faculty or attitude that serves as a guide when acting or acting.
A prospective based on the three elements implies the way in which two invaluable patrimonies of humanity are managed from knowledge: life and water. The knowledge and preparation of humanity guiding its way of acting on natural elements.
The connoisseurs, the world conferences on the environment, of which the one in Rio, defined as the Summit of Life, the world conference on diversity that defined it as the most invaluable heritage of the countries, the ecological organizations for the protection of the environment, the United Nations Environment Program - UNEP - present us with a grim picture of water and biodiversity. Let's see:
It is a known and widely documented fact that, on a global scale, the current loss of wild biodiversity is accelerating and alarming.
The direct cause is human beings, by the way in which, for centuries but more so in recent years, we treat our natural environment.
Following development schemes that seem to consider natural resources as inexhaustible and ignoring the fact that there is a limit to their rational use, the terrestrial or marine-coastal environment has been urbanized, converted into agricultural and livestock fields, deforested, overexploited and polluted.. It has been acted as if nature's ability to absorb these impacts is limitless.
Currently, about 100 species per day are going extinct and it is likely that at least 1 million of the more than 40 million estimated species will disappear in the next three decades.
These losses in biological diversity cannot be compensated by the appearance of new species, since it takes between 2,000 to 100,000 generations for a new species to evolve.
We are causing the largest mass extinction in 65 million years, since the end of the age of the dinosaurs, as shown by scientific evidence based on extinction rates of species and populations, as well as the massive loss of terrestrial ecosystems and marine.
Something that makes the situation even more tragic is that this mass extinction is occurring precisely at the time when biological diversity had reached a pinnacle, the product of millions of years of evolution. Never before have so many species and ecosystems existed on the face of the Earth.
And yet we are already living the sixth mass extinction that has occurred in the history of the Earth, which unlike the previous ones that were natural will be the only one generated by man.
Another worrying factor is water, since the known and truthful data is that only one percent of the earth's surface is occupied with fresh water, of which rivers, lakes and wetlands are part.
All life depends on this fragile product, and human beings have excelled in activities that pollute underground layers and surface waters.
With the construction of canals, dams and reservoirs, the natural flow of the main waterways of the planet has been altered, all with the aim of feeding agricultural lands with water resources and the demand generated by increasing urbanization and demographic growth.
The land allocated to agriculture covers a quarter of the total land, but three-quarters have low fertile land.
This situation is not strange, since 70 percent of these lands have been overused during the last 50 years, also being attacked by erosion and contamination.
It is precisely agricultural production that sustains much of the world's food, and its demand will increase considerably during the next two decades when the world population reaches one thousand seven hundred million people.
In 1972 the world population was 3.2 billion. In 2002, it is about 6 billion, and may only begin to stabilize at about 9 billion by the middle of this century; So the problem also has to do with overpopulation, in other words this world is small for so many people, because currently there are data of 800 million undernourished people around the world, so how many people will it be when reaching 9 billion ?
It is very difficult to predict how much of the wild biodiversity will be conserved with a rapidly growing world population.
Phenomena such as urbanization, industrialization and population growth have been the main responsible for the decrease in the number of species on the planet, generating an economic model that is not sustainable, an economic system that promotes destruction; the current rate and type of growth are leading to economic polarization and environmental degradation.
The voracious growth in the use of natural resources is destroying the ecosystem on which it is based.
The objectives of continued industrial growth are incompatible with the limits of the planet's natural system, the use of resources increases beyond environmentally sustainable levels.
Economic growth is still closely linked to the increase in the use of resources and all this great problem due to Western economic development because this is the culture of consumption, of greater acquisition and irrational exploitation that has led us to lose the value of nature, building huge cities that require greater consumption of natural resources and that only generate pollution that exceeds the capacity of the earth to self-regenerate.
The world has to change its way of acting in order to remain vital and livable, change its economic development model and replace it with a truly sustainable model, an economic balance is necessary as the wealthy sector consumes and wastes resources, while the sectors The poorest - the majority - survive, in many cases, at the cost of overexploitation of natural resources.
The population must be aware that the real carrying capacity of the planet has been exceeded, in addition a change in culture and habits is required, where values and appreciation for nature are the ideology to follow, production and consumption, for Therefore, they must be made much more efficient.
It should move to a more rational use of resources, the use of renewable resources and production and consumption cycles in which waste is reused.
The energy demand of industrial countries can be significantly reduced by more rational use of energy.
In developing countries, the rational use of this must also be ensured with simple and appropriate technologies, the supply of energy must go from "carbon" to renewable and clean sources that reduce the emissions of gases that cause the greenhouse effect.
By 2030 most people will live in cities.
To make them sustainable and to ensure that we enjoy better health, access to education, services and social exchanges, we need to rethink how buildings are used, since the construction and design of these must be with better efficiency energy, cities must be planned in such a way as to reduce dependence on cars.
Limiting greenhouse gas emissions and "emissions trading" is just a starting point.
The Kyoto Protocol must be fully applied and, as regards the precautionary principle, it must be extended to all anthropogenic substances that affect the climate, global warming and ocean circulation.
We must seek new systems for a rational use of natural and financial resources based on education, local values and sustainable practices, in accordance with global reality, and based on the access of all human beings to knowledge.
A society without limits to knowledge must be built, since much of the problem is due to the enormous ignorance "or lack of knowledge" in which the population lives, since it is impossible to make a change if people do not have understanding pollution problems and even worse if we do not leave an ecological present to the next generations.
The World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) in Johannesburg urged political leaders, civil society and the business community to agree on a new system of solidarity and development for all the world's inhabitants, that respects the limits of natural resources.
The new challenges are related to social justice, cultural diversity, economic stability, ecological protection and the optimal use of the planet's limited resources.
We need a new "ethics of human solidarity" to emerge, changing current trends, culture and thinking is now more than urgent.
If knowledge, as noted at the beginning of this writing, should guide the relationship with nature, a change in the orientation of the sciences is imposed. The objective of science is to provide solutions to the problems of society and the ecological problem, manifested in the crisis of biodiversity and water, is now the priority of society and must therefore be the priority of science.
This change has a guide: if knowledge was oriented before to exploit nature, now it must learn from nature that has shown that its principles are those of sustainability.
Our production model is linear and generates waste that causes pollution, while in nature the processes are cyclical and do not generate waste because what is waste for one species is food for another.
Nature works in a network while our processes are not integrated.
Nature uses the sun as energy and we use fossil resources that only generate pollution and that are depleted.
What is proposed to us is to orient knowledge towards ecodesign: to design production systems following nature. Likewise, a change in social values that privilege the quality of life and not the standard of living measured by how much we have, how many cars, televisions and clothes, etc.
The crisis will lead us to question daily life in what we eat, what we wear, how we transport ourselves, how we produce. And knowledge should guide us to achieve a better planet where all species and their vital element, water, can inhabit. Otherwise it will be the Apocalypse.
