The report was launched simultaneously at several UN headquarters around the world. "The challenge of ensuring the future of our environment is pressing and concerns us all, whether we work in education, science, culture or communication," UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Director-General Koïchiro Matsuura said in a message in Paris.
"The work of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment makes clear how ecosystems and human health are intertwined and further highlights how important it is that decisions related to economic development also protect the environment, in order to ultimately safeguard human health," said Kerstin Leitner, Assistant Director-General for Sustainable Development and Healthy Environments of the Geneva-based World Health Organization (WHO).
"The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment gives us, in some ways for the first time, an insight into the economic importance of ecosystem services and some new and additional arguments for respecting and conserving the Earth's life support systems," declared Klaus Toepfer, Executive Director of the Nairobi-based UN Environment Programme (UNEP).