The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) recently published its latest information about military spending in the world. The total figure of global expenditure in 2012 was estimated to be 1745 Billion US Dollars.
The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) for national and international policy makers, chapter 8, section 8.2.3 estimates that a global protected area network covering 15% of the land and 30% of the sea (not exactly Achi target 11, but close) would cost approximately US$ 45 billion per year, including effective management, compensation for direct costs, and payment of opportunity costs for acquiring new land.
The global protected area network would cost 2.6% of the global military expenditure. Moreover, TEEB estimates that the ecosystems within that network would deliver goods and services with a net annual value greater than US$ 4.4 trillion. The military expenditure just causes death.
World leaders should be ashamed.
Great to have some serious work highlighting this imbalance. As The Wilderness Society’s national advocate in Canberra between 1987 and 1990, I frequently put the proposal that we needed just one battleship’s worth of the budget transferred to our nationa environment agency – always with varying levels of ridicule.
Maybe one day you will be taken serious!
Let’s not give up our efforts to push for a change of heart and mind.