The the United Nations' Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) Synthesis Report was released in eight cities such as Beijing, London and Washington on March 30.

More than 1, 300 scientists from 95 countries engaged in the four-year research, which at last shows that 60 percent of the ecosystem on which humans rely is continually deteriorating with its sustainability weakened. Scientists warn that the deterioration is likely to continue in the future 50 years.

Scientists divide the ecosystem services into 24 items in four categories and they ended up finding that 15 of them are being degraded.

Xu Guanhua, MA board member and China's minister of science and technology and Zhang Lijun, vice minister of the State Environmental Protection Administration, attended the news conference held in Beijing. They said that ecosystem is a global issue which needs the joint efforts of all the countries in the world. China will launch targeted ecological recovery and construction such as building a water-saving society, desertification prevention project and the mechanism of east-west ecological compensation nationwide for a healthy development of the ecosystem in the western region of China.

Initiated on June 5, 2001, MA was the first worldwide multi-measure comprehensive evaluation on ecosystem and its impacts on human well-being. The program is aimed to provide decision makers with reliable information concerning the changes of ecosystem.

By People's Daily Online