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Budget for Restoring Earth Page 2

In expanding these estimates to cover the world, it is assumed that roughly 10 percent of the world's cropland is highly erodible and should be planted to grass or trees before the topsoil is lost and it becomes barren land. In both the United States and China, the two leading food-producing countries, which account for a third of the world grain harvest, the official goal is to retire one tenth of all cropland. In Europe, it likely would be somewhat less than 10 percent, but in Africa and the Andean countries it could be substantially higher than that.

For the world as a whole, converting 10 percent of cropland that is highly erodible to grass or trees seems a reasonable goal. Since this costs roughly $2 billion in the United States, which represents one eighth of the world cropland area, the total for the world would be roughly $16 billion annually.

Assuming that the need for erosion control practices for the rest of the world is similar to that in the United States, we again multiply the U.S. expenditure by eight to get a total of $8 billion for the world as a whole. The two components together--$16 billion for retiring highly erodible land and $8 billion for adopting conservation practices--give an annual total for the world of $24 billion.

Restoring Rangelands

For cost data on rangeland protection and restoration, we turn to the United Nations Plan of Action to Combat Desertification. This plan, which focuses on the world's dryland regions, containing nearly 90 percent of all rangeland, estimates that it would cost roughly $183 billion over a 20-year restoration period - or $9 billion per year. The key restoration measures include improved rangeland management, financial incentives to eliminate overstocking, and revegetation with appropriate rest periods, when grazing would be banned.

This is a costly undertaking, but every dollar invested in rangeland restoration yields a return of $2.50 in income from the increased productivity of the rangeland ecosystem. From a societal point of view, countries with large pastoral populations, where the rangeland deterioration is concentrated, are invariably among the world's poorest. The alternative to action--ignoring the deterioration--brings not only a loss of land productivity, but ultimately a loss of livelihood and millions of refugees, some migrating to nearby cities and others moving to other countries.

Restoring Fisheries

The restoration of oceanic fisheries centers primarily on the establishment of a worldwide network of marine reserves, which would cover roughly 30 percent of the ocean' surface. For this exercise we use detailed calculations by the Conservation Biology Group at Cambridge University. Their estimated range of expenditures centers on $13 billion per year.

Protecting Biological Diversity

For wildlife protection, the bill is somewhat higher.  The World Parks Congress estimates that the annual shortfall in funding needed to manage and to protect existing areas designated as parks comes to roughly $25 billion a year. Additional areas needed, including those encompassing the biologically diverse hotspots not yet included in designated parks, would cost perhaps another $6 billion a year, yielding a total of $31 billion. 

Stabilizing Water Tables

There is one activity, stabilizing water tables, where we do not have an estimate, only a guess. The key to stabilizing water tables is raising water productivity, and for this we have the experience gained beginning a half-century ago when the world started to systematically raise land productivity. The elements needed in a comparable water model are research to develop more water-efficient irrigation practices and technologies, the dissemination of these research findings to farmers, and economic incentives that encourage farmers to adopt and use these improved irrigation practices and technologies.
In some countries, the capital needed to fund a program to raise water productivity can come from cancelling the subsidies that now often encourage the wasteful use of irrigation water. Sometimes these are power subsidies, as they are in India; other times they are subsidies that provide water at prices well below costs, as happens in the United States. In terms of additional resources needed worldwide, including the economic incentives for farmers to use more water-efficient practices and technologies, we assume it will take additional expenditures of $10 billion.

Altogether, restoring the earth will require additional expenditures of $93 billion per year. Many will ask, Can the world afford this? But the only appropriate question is, Can the world afford to not make these investments?

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Lester Brown founded the Worldwatch Institute and is currently President of the Earth Policy Institute. He is the author of Plan B 2.0: Rescuing a Planet Under Stress and a Civilization in Trouble.

This article is adapted from Chapter 8. 

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