Award winning glimpse into the future

'Ecosystems and Well-Being: Scenarios' a new report, will be released in Washington today. A sub-report of the Millennium Assessment (MA), it looks at potential global developments and their impacts on ecosystems by 2050. The report considers the knock-on effect of these impacts for human health. The EEA was heavily involved in writing the report as part of its ongoing work in the field of scenarios. Scientists involved in the report were recently awarded the Zayed International Prize for the Environment.
Day-to-day policy making usually addresses the immediate or short term needs of a society. By building future scenarios based on data in the Millennium Assessment, the authors of the report hope to encourage longer term environmentally sensitive planning from governments around the globe.

The Millennium Assessment (MA)

The product of a 4-year global research initiative involving over 1,300 scientists, the MA was sanctioned by Kofi Annan, Secretary-General of the United Nations and 180 governments.

Although global environmental forecasts have been done before, the MA represents the first study to look at how the health of the environment contributes to human well-being and quality of life, and how policy decisions we make today will shape the world of tomorrow.

The scientists involved in the Millennium Assessment report were awarded the prestigious Zayed International Prize for the Environment worth $300,000 for Scientific and Technological Achievement. The jury described it as a "landmark study" which "demonstrates that the degradation of ecosystems is progressing at an alarming and unsustainable rate".

For information on

The Millennium Assessment please see:
http://www.millenniumassessment.org/en/index.aspx

EEA scenarios projects: please visit the 'Environmental Scenarios - Information Web Portal':
http://scenarios.ewindows.eu.org/reports/fol077184