Surprise, surprise: World Resources Institute report says that since most of the world's poor depend on nature for their income, effective poverty fighting requires better environmental protection. In other news, water is wet and unsupported objects fall to the ground.
The report also notes, in a foreword by senior members of the World Bank and the UN Environment and Development Program, the sobering results of the four-year Millennium Ecosystem Assessment:
- organisms are disappearing at 100 to 1,000 times the "background levels" seen in the fossil record
- a third of all amphibians, a fifth of mammals and an eighth of all birds are threatened with extinction
- some 35% of mangroves and about 20% of corals have gone.