A/HRC/34/49 America, Diplodon chilensis, has been shown to decrease eutrophication by reducing total phosphorus and controlling phytoplankton densities. 41 Natural filtration services can also clean water of human-made toxic substances. A famous example is Epischura baikalensis, a crustacean native to Lake Baikal in the Russian Federation, the largest freshwater lake by volume in the world. Each no bigger than a poppy seed, these copepods keep the water clear by ingesting pollutants as well as food. In the words of a local environmentalist, they are “the heroes of the lake”.42 Of course, there are limits to the ability of ecosystems to clean up after us. By removing persistent organic pollutants from the water, Epischura and other species introduce them into the food chain, where they bioaccumulate in larger animals such as fish, seals and, eventually, humans. 43 3. Non-discrimination and the rights of those most vulnerable to the loss of biodiversity 22. The degradation and loss of biodiversity often result from and reinforce existing patterns of discrimination. Although everyone depends on ecosystem services, some people depend on them more closely than others. For indigenous peoples, forest-dwellers, fisherfolk and others who rely directly on the products of forests, rivers, lakes and oceans for their food, fuel and medicine, environmental harm can and often does have disastrous consequences. This is true not only because of their close relationship to nature, but also because they typically have little economic and political power within their countries, so they cannot easily obtain substitutes for their lost natural resources.44 Their marginalization means that they have limited or no access to decision-making processes or legal remedies. Their legal rights to the territory and resources on which they depend may not even be recognized by their Governments. 23. In addition to the material consequences of environmental degradation, there are often grave cultural effects. Many religions call on all human beings to be stewards of the riches of the natural world. However, the loss of particular places is felt predominantly by those who associate their sacred rituals and sites with those locations. Food and shelter may be replaced, but the destruction of a sacred grove may cause irreparable harm. For example, when members of the AmaXhosa people in South Africa were asked what would happen if sites sacred to their community were destroyed, they replied “it means that our culture is dead.”45 24. Cutting down forests for timber and to clear land for agricultural production, building dams to harness rivers for hydroelectric power and opening fisheries to industrial exploitation may well have economic benefits. But even if the economic benefits outweigh the real economic and cultural costs at a macro scale (which they often do not, since the real costs of destroying a forest or a river ecosystem are almost never taken into account), 46 the benefits are recovered disproportionately by those who did not depend directly on the resource and the costs are imposed disproportionately on those who did. As a result, “the loss of biodiversity-dependent ecosystem services is likely to accentuate inequality and marginalization of the most vulnerable sectors of society, by decreasing their access to basic materials for a healthy life and by reducing their freedom of choice and action. Economic development that does not consider effects on these ecosystem services may 41 42 43 44 45 46 Ibid., citing sources. Peter Thomson, “Russia’s Lake Baikal: preserving a natural treasure”, environment360 (3 June 2008). Ibid. Connecting Global Priorities, p. 32. Ecosystems and Human Well-being: Biodiversity Synthesis, p. 31. Ecosystems and Human Well-being: Synthesis, pp. 6-11. For studies of the economic value of biodiversity, see the Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity initiative, at www.teebweb.org. 9