United Nations Report claims one million species on verge of extinction

 

In a sweeping, first-of-its-kind report, the United Nations on Monday said that more species now are threatened with extinction than at any time in human history, and that the exploding human population has severely altered the Earth's land, ocean and freshwater regions.  

 “While the planetary garden still exists,” Thomas Lovejoy of George Mason University said about the report, “it is in deep disrepair, frayed and fragmented almost beyond recognition."

The report said 1 million of the planet's 8 million species of plants and animals are at risk of going extinct in the near future. Scientists blame human activities that have led to loss of habitat, climate change, overfishing, pollution and invasive species.

The pace of species loss “is already tens to hundreds of times higher than it has been, on average, over the last 10 million years," according to the report.  

 

For the past week, about 450 scientists met in Paris to come up with the 1,500-page report. The summary from the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPEBS) was unanimously approved by more than 130 nations, including the United States

"The overwhelming evidence of the IPBES Global Assessment, from a wide range of different fields of knowledge, presents an ominous picture," IPBES Chair Sir Robert Watson said. "The health of ecosystems on which we and all other species depend is deteriorating more rapidly than ever. We are eroding the very foundations of our economies, livelihoods, food security, health and quality of life worldwide."  Killing off animals and plants can threaten humanity's own future as the food chain and eco-systems collapse

The report says humans are ravaging the planet by: 

• Turning forests, grasslands and other areas into farms, cities and other developments. The habitat loss leaves plants and animals homeless.
• Overfishing the world’s oceans. A third of the world’s fish stocks are overfished.
• Permitting climate change from the burning of fossil fuels to make it too hot, wet or dry for some species to survive. 
• Polluting land and water.
• Allowing invasive species to crowd out native plants and animals. 

Habitats of Rain Forest Orangutans are being destroyed and cleared for human use. Their numbers

are dwindling rapidly

“Humanity, unwittingly, is attempting to throttle the living planet and humanity’s own future,” said Lovejoy, who has been called the godfather of biodiversity for his research

The report isn't all doom and gloom, however, as it offers a solution, radical and challenging though it may be: "The report also tells us that it is not too late to make a difference, but only if we start now at every level from local to global," Watson said.

"Through 'transformative change', nature can still be conserved, restored and used sustainably – this is also key to meeting most other global goals," Watson said. By transformative change, we mean a fundamental, system-wide reorganization across technological, economic and social factors, including paradigms, goals and values." 

Many of the worst effects can be prevented by changing the way we grow food, produce energy, deal with climate change and dispose of waste, the report said. That involves concerted action by governments, companies and people.

Lovejoy added that "the biological diversity of this planet has been really hammered, and this is really our last chance to address all of that,” he said.

The group is modeled after the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which has met every few years since the 1990s to confront the effects of global warming. 

Contributing: The Associated Press