Facing The Heat: Latin America’s Bio-diversity Under Threat

By: Patrick Wrokpoh on December 17th, 2008

Studies have shown a considerable increase in the intensity of extreme weather in Latin America and the Caribbean, and video footage shows that this could get significantly worse in the near future.

The Director of the World Bank’s Sustainable Development Department for Latin America and the Caribbean, Laura Tuck, said that 30 per cent of the coral reefs in the Caribbean coast are already dead, and the rest are bleaching and dying. Should this continue, said Tuck, the Latin American coast will be devoid of its bio-diversity by 2060.

Addressing journalists on Wednesday in the conference room of the ongoing UNFCCC, in Poznan, Poland, Tuck said that global warming has had a huge impact on Latin America’s and the Caribbean’s fishing and tourism industries, the general maritime eco-system, as well as the coastal protection of the region.

She said already studies have shown a considerable increase in the intensity of extreme weather, and video footage shows that this could get significantly worse in the near future.

“By 2025, we are projecting an increase in damage from hurricanes in Mexico, and a three-fold to four-fold increase [in the same] in Central America and the Caribbean,” Tuck said. “On an average, estimates show that each weather advance costs about 26 per cent of the GDP in the countries that are affected.”

Tuck said the study has also seen an increase in mortality rates from tropical diseases like malaria. Statistics available from the ’70s to ’90s in Columbia show a jump from 400 to 800 cases in the disease. With due projection, the country may face an increase of 8 per cent by 2050. Tuck noted that the World Bank foresees a worsening in the number of cases in coming years.

Tuck further said: “Latin America is the most biodiverse region in the world. There are a lots of mammals in the region. But we are also projecting that countries like Mexico could lose up to a quarter of their mammal species by 2050 under the current trend.”

Commenting on the agricultural situation in the region as contained in the World Bank’s latest study, Tuck said the biggest impact on the economy of the region would be on agriculture, and that the World Bank sees an average reduction of about 12 per cent to 50 per cent in agricultural production in the region by 2010, with some parts being worse affected than others. “Overall, the impact would be negative,” she quoted the study as saying.

Using Mexico as an example, the World Bank’s study shows that nearly 30 per cent to 85 per cent of farms here could face severe reduction in productivity, which, she noted, could impact global food crisis across the world.

Meanwhile, in the midst of the biggest global financial crisis in decades, the World Bank is urging the international community attending the Poznan summit to look to Latin America for innovative solutions to avert a climate crisis.

“The region is in a position to lead middle income countries in reducing emissions from deforestation, breaking the impasse on hydropower development, improving efficiency, and transforming urban transport,” the World Bank said in a statement today.