BARCELONA?In this beautiful city where Antoni Gaudí and Pablo Picasso found peace and inspiration, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) held its 4th World Conservation Congress early last month, in the hope of finding ways to save the world from extinction.

Indeed, earth as we know it faces the greatest challenge ever. The arctic ice is melting fast, species have begun to disappear even before they are identified, water and food shortages are plaguing many countries.

Almost all of the world?s forests have been logged, and the remaining few are at risk of destruction.

Water, the resource of all life and once so bountiful, is drying up.

The oceans, the last frontier that once had bountiful marine resources, are now a garbage dump, with 150 dead zones at last count. These dead zones have ran out of oxygen, thereby killing marine species. The home of Moby Dick and the great whales are now in danger of losing all life.

As I write this, the US economic bubble has burst and the global economy is feeling the crunch.

It was 60 years ago that the IUCN was founded by an eminent group of forward-thinking people in the forest city of Fontainebleu, in France. (Its founding name was International Union for the Protection of Nature.)

The IUCN was founded on Oct. 5, 1948, when the world was still recovering from the devastating effects of World War II.

Today, its founding fathers would be aghast by Earth?s conditions.

Today, we are witnesses to how the planet that we were supposed to protect and conserve, has been ravaged.

Today, we face a shortage of food and water, with over a billion people living under poverty level.

Climate change

Global warming and climate change fueled by man?s greed and lust for material wealth have reached unprecedented levels.

The global average surface temperatures have increased on the average by about 0.6 degrees Celsius during the period 1956-2006, resulting in an alarming rise of sea levels.

Melting ice caps on the mountain ranges have wrought havoc in many countries, flooding communities and ecosystems, eroding the rich top soil and ultimately destroying coral reefs, mangrove swamps and estuaries.

This year alone, Earth has experienced the most unpredictable weather ever, with fierce droughts, hurricanes and typhoons.

The United Nations millennium development goals set forth during the World Summit on Sustainable Development in 2002, in Johannesburg, South Africa, have yet to bear fruit.

War is being waged in many parts of the globe and food lines have become a way of life.

The deserts continue to expand and reclaim what was once pristine forest.

There are so many issues to tackle, so many battles to wage, and yet the wanton degradation of our natural capital remains unabated.

Grameen Bank

Muhammad Yunus, the Nobel Peace laureate from Bangladesh, who is the founder and CEO of Grameen Bank, was one of the key speakers at the opening ceremony.

Another notable figure was the guest of honor, Prince Felipe of Asturias, who aired the many ecological problems, as well as his hopes that the Congress would bring the solutions needed to save Earth.

Yunus advocated the importance of social business and corporate social responsibility. He talked about Grameen Bank as a model for everyone to follow.

The bank extends loans to the poor without collateral in amounts as small as $10 and averaging $200. The repayment and payback ratio is nearly 100 percent, with a loan portfolio of over $1 billion.

Grameen Bank measures profitability not by dollars and cents but by how many people it has helped, and how many children it has fed, nourished and sent to school.

It is a far cry from the old business and economic models, and indeed, the bank has not been affected by the crisis the world economy is grappling with.

Yunus, whose latest innovation and venture was to build solar-powered homes in Bangladesh, even quipped that he was thinking of buying an American bank soon.

He said that over 130,000 homes in his country were being powered by solar energy, and their goal in this venture was to build a million such homes by the end of 2015.

I was very impressed by Yunus. His country is considered one of the poorest in the world, but it is on the right track.

How I wish that multinational corporations would follow his example so that we will still have hope of revitalizing nature and conserving its natural capital.

Inspiration

Touring the rich and cultural city of Barcelona, from Las Ramblas to Port Vell, from Gaudí?s Sagrada Familia to the Museu Picasso, we were inspired by their works and enlivened by the hope that this Congress would galvanize the greatly needed impetus to save humankind.

Let not the beautiful city of Barcelona, whose charm can mesmerize anyone, fade away unnoticed.

Let it imbue the Congress delegates with the same inspiration that it gave Gaudí and Picasso.

Let us win this war and give nature the right to life.

The author is the president of the Ecological Society of the Philippines.