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MA Scenarios - Global Orchestration

The MA developed four global scenarios exploring plausible future changes in drivers, ecosystems, ecosystem services, and human well-being. These scenarios are :

"The Global Orchestration scenario depicts a globally-connected society in which policy reforms that focus on global trade and economic liberalization are used to reshape economies and governance, emphasizing the creation of markets that allow equal participation and provide equal access to goods and services. These policies, in combination with large investments in global public health and the improvement of education worldwide, generally succeed in promoting economic expansion and lifting many people out of poverty into an expanding global middle class. Supra national institutions in this globalized scenario are well-placed to deal with global environmental problems such as climate change and fisheries. However, the reactive approach to ecosystem management favored in this scenario makes people vulnerable to surprises arising from delayed action. While the focus is on improving human well-being of all people, environmental problems that threaten human well-being are only considered after they become apparent.

Growing economies, expansion of education, and growth of the middle class leads to demand for cleaner cities, less pollution, and a more beautiful environment. Rising income levels bring about changes in global consumption patterns, boosting demand for ecosystem services, including agricultural products such as meat, fish, and vegetables. Growing demand for these services leads to declines in other services, as forests are converted into cropped area and pasture, and the services formerly provided by forests decline. The problems related to increasing food production, such as loss of wildlands, are not apparent to most people who live in urban areas. These problems therefore receive only limited attention.

Global economic expansion expropriates or degrades many of the ecosystem services poor people once depended upon for their survival. While economic growth more than compensates for these losses in some regions by increasing our ability to find substitutes for particular ecosystem services, in many other places, it does not. An increasing number of people are impacted by the loss of basic ecosystem services essential for human life. While risks seem manageable in some places, in other places there are sudden, unexpected losses as ecosystems cross thresholds and degrade irreversibly. Loss of potable water supplies, crop failures, floods, species invasions, and outbreaks of environmental pathogens increase in frequency. The expansion of abrupt, unpredictable changes in ecosystems, many with harmful effects on increasingly large numbers of people, is the key challenge facing managers of ecosystem services. "

Source & © Millennium Ecosystem Assessment
 Synthesis Report (2005),
Chapter 5, Box 5.1, pp.72-73

Ecosystem Change

Box 3.1 Table. Selected Water-related Diseases.

Table 1.1. Comparative table of reporting systems as defined by the Millennium Assessment

Table 2.1. Trends in the Human Use of Ecosystem Services and Enhancement or Degradation of the Service Around the Year 2000 - Provisioning services

Table 2.1. Trends in the Human Use of Ecosystem Services and Enhancement or Degradation of the Service Around the Year 2000 - Regulating services

Table 2.1. Trends in the Human Use of Ecosystem Services and Enhancement or Degradation of the Service Around the Year 2000 - Cultural services

Table 2.1. Trends in the Human Use of Ecosystem Services and Enhancement or Degradation of the Service Around the Year 2000 - Supporting services

Table 2.2. Indicative Ecosystem Service Trade-offs.

Table 5.1. Main Assumptions Concerning Indirect and Direct Driving Forces Used in the MA Scenarios

Table 5.2. Outcomes of Scenarios for Ecosystem Services in 2050 Compared with 2000

Table 5.3. Outcomes of Scenarios for Human Well-being in 2050 Compared with 2000

Table 5.4. Costs and Benefits of Proactive as Contrasted with Reactive Ecosystem Management as Revealed in the MA Scenarios

Table 8.1. Applicability of Decision Support Methods and Frameworks

Marine, Coastal, and Island Systems

Urban, Dryland and Polar systems

Forest systems

Cultivated systems

Inland water and Mountain systems

Box Figure B. Proportion of Population with Improved Drinking Water Supply in 2002

Box Figure C. Proportion of population with improved sanitation coverage in 2002

Figure 1.2. Conversion of Terrestrial Biomes

Figure 1.3. Decline in Trophic Level of Fisheries Catch Since 1950

Figure 1.4. Locations reported by various studies as undergoing high rates of land cover change in the past few decades.

Figure 1.5. Global Trends in the Creation of Reactive Nitrogen on Earth by Human Activity, with Projection to 2050

Figure 1.7. Growth in Number of Marine Species Introductions.

Figure 1.8. Species Extinction Rates

Figure 3.4. Collapse of Atlantic Cod Stocks Off the East Coast of Newfoundland in 1992

Figure 3.5. Dust Cloud Off the Northwest Coast of Africa, March 6, 2004

Figure 3.6. Changes in Economic Structure for Selected Countries

Figure 3.7. Human Population Growth Rates, 1990-2000, and Per Capita GDP and Biological Productivity in 2000 in MA Ecological Systems

Figure 4.1. GDP Average Annual Growth, 1990-2003

Figure 4.2. Per capita GDP Average Annual Growth, 1990-2003

Figure 4.3. Main Direct Drivers of Change in Biodiversity and Ecosystems

Figure 5.1. MA World Population Scenarios

Figure 5.3. Number of Ecosystem Services Enhanced or Degraded by 2050 in the Four MA Scenarios

Figure 6.1. MA Sub-Global Assessments

Figure 7.1. Characteristic Time and Space Scales Related to Ecosystems and Their Services

Box 3.1. Linkages between Ecosystem Services and Human Well-being

Box 6.1 Local Adaptations of MA Conceptual Framework

Scenarios of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment

MA Scenarios - Global Orchestration

MA Scenarios - Order from Strength

MA Scenarios - TechnoGarden

MA Scenarios - Adapting Mosaic

Marine, Coastal and Island systems

Urban, Dryland and Polar systems

Forest and Cultivated systems

Inland waters and Mountain systems

MA Systems

Box 2.1: Ecosystem Services

Box 2.1: Ecosystem Services

Box 3.2. Ecosystems and the Millennium Development Goals

Box 3.1. Linkages between Ecosystem Services and Human Well-being: Basic Materials for a Good Life

Box 3.1. Linkages between Ecosystem Services and Human Well-being: Health

Box 3.1. Linkages between Ecosystem Services and Human Well-being: Good Social Relations

Box 3.1. Linkages between Ecosystem Services and Human Well-being: Security

Box 3.1. Linkages between Ecosystem Services and Human Well-being: Freedom of Choice and Action

Box 6.1 Local Adaptations of MA Conceptual Framework

Figure 1.1. Time Series of Intercepted Continental Runoff and Large Reservoir Storage, 1900-2000

Figure 1.6. Estimated Total Reactive Nitrogen Deposition from the Atmosphere

Figure 2.1. Estimated Global Marine Fish Catch, 1950-2001.

Figure 2.2. Trend in Mean Depth of Catch Since 1950.

Figure 3.1. Net National Savings Adjusted for Investments in Human Capital, Natural Resource Depletion, and Damage Caused by Pollution compared with Standard Net National Savings Measurements

Figure 3.2. Annual Flow of Benefits from Forests in Selected Countries

Figure 3.3. Economic Benefits Under Alternate Management Practices

Table 4.1. Increase in Nitrogen Fluxes in Rivers to Coastal Oceans

Figure 5.2. Comparison of Global River Nitrogen Export

Figure 5.4. Number of Undernourished Children Projected in 2050 Under MA Scenarios

Figure 5.5. Net Change in Components of Human Well-being Between 2000 and 2050 Under MA Scenarios.

Figure 8.1. Total Carbon Market Value per Year (in million dollars nominal)