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MA Scenarios - TechnoGardenThe MA developed four global scenarios exploring plausible future changes in drivers, ecosystems, ecosystem services, and human well-being. These scenarios are :
 "The TechnoGarden scenario depicts a globally connected world relying strongly on technology and highly managed, often engineered ecosystems, to deliver ecosystem services. Overall efficiency of ecosystem service provision improves, but is shadowed by the risks inherent in large-scale human-made solutions and rigid control of ecosystems. Technology and market-oriented institutional reform are used to achieve solutions to environmental problems. These solutions are designed to benefit both the economy and the environment. These changes co-develop with the expansion of property rights to ecosystem services, such as requiring people to pay for pollution they create or paying people for providing key ecosystem services through actions such as preservation of key watersheds. Interest in maintaining, and even increasing, the economic value of these property rights, combined with an interest in learning and information, leads to a flowering of ecological engineering approaches for managing ecosystem services. Investment in green technology is accompanied by a significant focus on economic development and education, improving people's lives and helping them understand how ecosystems make their livelihoods possible. A variety of problems in global agriculture are addressed by focusing on the multifunctional aspects of agriculture and a global reduction of agricultural subsidies and trade barriers. Recognition of the role of agricultural diversification encourages farms to produce a variety of ecological services, rather than simply maximizing food production. The combination of these movements stimulates the growth of new markets for ecosystem services, such as tradable nutrient runoff permits, and the development of technology for increasingly sophisticated ecosystem management. Gradually, environmental entrepreneurship expands as new property rights and technologies co-evolve to stimulate the growth of companies and cooperatives providing reliable ecosystem services to cities, towns, and individual property owners. Innovative capacity expands quickly in developing nations. The reliable provision of ecosystem services, as a component of economic growth, together with enhanced uptake of technology due to rising income levels, lifts many of the world's poor into a global middle class. Elements of human well-being associated with social relations decline in this scenario due to great loss of local culture, customs, and traditional knowledge that occurs and due to the weakening of civil society institutions as an increasing share of interactions take place over the Internet. While the provision of basic ecosystem services improves the well-being of the world's poor, the reliability of the services, especially in urban areas, is increasingly critical and increasingly difficult to ensure. Not every problem has succumbed to technological innovation. Reliance on technological solutions sometimes creates new problems and vulnerabilities. In some cases, we seem to be barely ahead of the next threat to ecosystem services. In such cases new problems often seem to emerge from the last solution, and the costs of managing the environment are continually rising. Environmental breakdowns that impact large numbers of people become more common. Sometimes new problems seem to emerge faster than solutions. The challenge for the future will be to learn how to organize social-ecological systems so that ecosystem services are maintained without taxing society's ability to implement solutions to novel, emergent problems. " Source & ©
Millennium Ecosystem Assessment Related publication:
Other Figures & Tables on this publication: Box 3.1 Table. Selected Water-related Diseases. Table 1.1. Comparative table of reporting systems as defined by the Millennium Assessment Table 2.2. Indicative Ecosystem Service Trade-offs. Table 5.1. Main Assumptions Concerning Indirect and Direct Driving Forces Used in the MA Scenarios Table 5.2. Outcomes of Scenarios for Ecosystem Services in 2050 Compared with 2000 Table 5.3. Outcomes of Scenarios for Human Well-being in 2050 Compared with 2000 Table 8.1. Applicability of Decision Support Methods and Frameworks Marine, Coastal, and Island Systems Urban, Dryland and Polar systems Inland water and Mountain systems Box Figure B. Proportion of Population with Improved Drinking Water Supply in 2002 Box Figure C. Proportion of population with improved sanitation coverage in 2002 Figure 1.2. Conversion of Terrestrial Biomes Figure 1.3. Decline in Trophic Level of Fisheries Catch Since 1950 Figure 1.7. Growth in Number of Marine Species Introductions. Figure 1.8. Species Extinction Rates Figure 3.4. Collapse of Atlantic Cod Stocks Off the East Coast of Newfoundland in 1992 Figure 3.5. Dust Cloud Off the Northwest Coast of Africa, March 6, 2004 Figure 3.6. Changes in Economic Structure for Selected Countries Figure 4.1. GDP Average Annual Growth, 1990-2003 Figure 4.2. Per capita GDP Average Annual Growth, 1990-2003 Figure 4.3. Main Direct Drivers of Change in Biodiversity and Ecosystems Figure 5.1. MA World Population Scenarios Figure 5.3. Number of Ecosystem Services Enhanced or Degraded by 2050 in the Four MA Scenarios Figure 6.1. MA Sub-Global Assessments Figure 7.1. Characteristic Time and Space Scales Related to Ecosystems and Their Services Box 3.1. Linkages between Ecosystem Services and Human Well-being Box 6.1 Local Adaptations of MA Conceptual Framework Scenarios of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment MA Scenarios - Global Orchestration MA Scenarios - Order from Strength MA Scenarios - Adapting Mosaic Marine, Coastal and Island systems Urban, Dryland and Polar systems Inland waters and Mountain systems Box 3.2. Ecosystems and the Millennium Development Goals Box 3.1. Linkages between Ecosystem Services and Human Well-being: Basic Materials for a Good Life Box 3.1. Linkages between Ecosystem Services and Human Well-being: Health Box 3.1. Linkages between Ecosystem Services and Human Well-being: Good Social Relations Box 3.1. Linkages between Ecosystem Services and Human Well-being: Security Box 3.1. Linkages between Ecosystem Services and Human Well-being: Freedom of Choice and Action Box 6.1 Local Adaptations of MA Conceptual Framework Figure 1.1. Time Series of Intercepted Continental Runoff and Large Reservoir Storage, 1900-2000 Figure 1.6. Estimated Total Reactive Nitrogen Deposition from the Atmosphere Figure 2.1. Estimated Global Marine Fish Catch, 1950-2001. Figure 2.2. Trend in Mean Depth of Catch Since 1950. Figure 3.2. Annual Flow of Benefits from Forests in Selected Countries Figure 3.3. Economic Benefits Under Alternate Management Practices Table 4.1. Increase in Nitrogen Fluxes in Rivers to Coastal Oceans Figure 5.2. Comparison of Global River Nitrogen Export Figure 5.4. Number of Undernourished Children Projected in 2050 Under MA Scenarios Figure 5.5. Net Change in Components of Human Well-being Between 2000 and 2050 Under MA Scenarios. Figure 8.1. Total Carbon Market Value per Year (in million dollars nominal) | |||||||||||||
