These changes have helped to improve the lives of billions, but have at the same time weakened ecosystems´ capacity to deliver other crucial services. The trend is that the degradation will escalate in the coming 50 years.

This is a serious barrier to the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals, and will in particular threaten the livelihoods of the rural poor.These findings are presented in two sets of reports published during 2005: a series of reports from the Millenium Ecosystem Assessment (MA), and the World Resources Report (WRR) for 2005, The Wealth of the poor: Managing ecosystems to fight poverty, published by the World Resources Institute (WRI).

The good news are that both the MA-reports and the WRR stress that the negative trend can be changed, but requires substantial changes in policy, institutions and practice.

Good governance and improved management of ecosystems is critical, including increased influence of local communities, and taking the full value of ecosystems services (and the full costs of their degradation) into account in decision-making.

About Jonathan Lash
Jonathan Lash is president of the World Resources Institute (WRI). He has served as co-chair of the US President´s Council on Sustainable Development.

He has served as a member of advisory groups to the administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Trade Representative. Mr. Lash has also served on a broad range of national and international groups, including the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development´s Round Table on Sustainable Development. Before joining WRI,

Mr. Lash directed the environmental law and policy program of the Vermont Law School.