UNITED NATIONS, June 5 (UPI) -- The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, perhaps the most extensive environmental study in history, was launched Tuesday by U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan.

The study is motivated in large part by concern in the scientific community that the natural systems that sustain life and commerce on the planet are being severely damaged. During the past century, many of the world's forests have been decimated. Large portions of wetlands have been lost and farm land degraded. The world's fisheries are in severe decline and fresh water is becoming scarcer.

Over the next four years more than 1,500 scientists worldwide will examine farmlands, oceans, rivers, forests, grasslands and wetlands. The project team will issue a report in March 2004 that will be made available to policy makers from every country.

Speaking at the official launch of the project, Annan said, "The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment will map the health of our planet, and so fill important gaps in the knowledge that we need to preserve it . . . All of us have to share the Earth's fragile ecosystems and precious resources, and each of us has to play a role in preserving them. If we are to go on living together on this earth, we must all be responsible for it."

Not only will the study be worldwide, but the methodology employed will be more advanced than anything done to date, according to Seema Paul, biodiversity program officer at the United Nations Foundation, an independent philanthropic organization.

Biologists, agronomists, members of indigenous communities, hydrologists, sociologists, economists, ecologists, microbiologists, ornithologists, soil chemists, anthropologists, foresters, and specialists from many other disciplines will devise a comprehensive approach. The goal is to write a report that ties together more elements of the web of life than has ever been done before.

"Basically, it's a very crosscutting kind of effort, where people from different scientific backgrounds are coming and working collectively and trying to brainstorm together and bringing different data-sets together and sitting down and saying, 'We've done this separate from each other, how can we benefit from doing it jointly? How can we really reach some conclusions on ecosystem issues that all will be willing to buy?" Paul told UPI.

The report will be designed to be used at the regional, sub-regional or local level, Paul said. Work has started on assessments in Central America, Southern Africa, Norway, Southeast Asia Western China and Norway. Local assessments are also underway in India and Sweden.

Much of the impetus for the Millennium Ecosystems Assessment comes from issues raised by three international environmental treaties -- the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity, the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands and the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification. In addition, an extensive pilot study carried out by the World Resources Institute has shown that many ecosystems around the world are losing their ability to meet human needs for food and clean water. Health threats to many species, including humans, are growing.

The effort is projected to cost $21 million. Major funding for the initial phase is being provided by the UN Foundation, $4.5 million; the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, $2.4 million; and the World Bank, $2 million. After the initial phase, the Global Environment Facility will contribute $6.9 million. Eleven other organizations, including three from the UN, are sponsors and twelve more, including four from the UN, are collaborators.

Though almost unknown to the general public, the Global Environment Facility has 167 member nations and has funded $3 billion worth of environmental studies and projects in the last decade, while obtaining $6 billion in matching funds. Hundreds of these projects have involved types of studies similar to the assessment.

The chief executive of the Global Environment Facility, Mohamed T. El-Ashry said this morning, "All countries depend on ecosystem services to sustain their populations. When these services are damaged, it can have wide-ranging repercussions on the development prospects of affected nations with the most serious impact on the poor. The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment will be a powerful tool in helping us mitigate and even reverse negative environmental trends and will strengthen our ability to foster truly sustainable development."

The World Resources Institute pilot study will provide a model for the new assessment. That study, the Pilot Analysis of Global Ecosystems, or PAGE, examined five types of ecosystems: agricultural, coastal, forest, freshwater and grasslands. A major conclusion was that the capacity of the ecosystems studied to produce goods and services was decreasing over a broad range.

"PAGE results confirm that major modifications of ecosystems -- through deforestation, conversion, nutrient pollution, dams, biological invasions, and region-scale air pollution -- continue to grow in scale and pervasiveness. Furthermore, human activities are significantly altering the basic chemical cycles that all ecosystems depend on. This strikes at the foundation of ecosystem functions and adds to the fundamental stresses that ecosystems face on a global scale," the report said.

On June 19, PBS TV will broadcast a 2-hour Bill Moyers special, titled "Earth on Edge," that will explore some of the findings of the World Resources pilot study on which the Millennium Ecosystems Assessment is modeled.

Copyright 2001 by United Press International.