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WWF Says Global Species Are Dying Out Fast

Posted on: Friday, 16 May 2008, 01:55 CDT

The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) said habitat loss and the wildlife trade have caused world biodiversity to decline by almost one third in the past 35 years.

It warned that over the next three decades climate change would add increasingly to the wildlife woes.

"Biodiversity underpins the health of the planet and has a direct impact on all our lives so it is alarming that despite of an increased awareness of environmental issues we continue to see a downtrend trend," said WWF campaign head Colin Butfield.

"However, there are small signs for hope and if government grasps what is left of this rapidly closing window of opportunity, we can begin to reverse this trend."

The Living Planet Index is a project by the WWF that tracks some 4,000 species of birds, fish, mammals, reptiles and amphibians globally. It shows that land-based species fell by 25 percent, marine by 28 percent and freshwater by 29 percent between 1970 and 2007.

Since the mid-1990’s marine bird species have fallen 30 percent.

Some scientists see the loss of plants, animals and insects as the start of the sixth great species wipe out in the Earth's history . The last was in the age of the dinosaurs, which disappeared 130 million years ago.

Many believe that dwindling species put human survival at risk as most of the world’s food and medicines come initially from nature.

WWF director general James Leape said reduced biodiversity means millions of people face a future where food supplies are more vulnerable to pests and disease and where water is in irregular or short supply.

"No one can escape the impact of biodiversity loss because reduced global diversity translates quite clearly into fewer new medicines, greater vulnerability to natural disasters and greater effects from global warming,” he said.

Stephen Hooper, the head of Britain's world-renowned Kew Gardens, likened biodiversity to a planetary health monitor.

"First-aiders always check the ABC -- Airway, Breathing and Circulation -- of a patient to see if anything needs immediate attention," said Hooper.

He called biodiversity the ABC of life on the planet and said, “It is showing it is in deep trouble."

Kew is working with the Millennium Seed Bank project, which is well on the way to collecting and storing safely 10 percent of the world's wild plants.

The project’s next goal is to raise that total to 25 percent by 2020.

The WWF report comes ahead of a meeting in Bonn next week of member states of the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity to try to find out how to save the world's flora and fauna under threat from human activities.

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On the Net:

World Wide Fund for Nature

Living Planet Index

Source: redOrbit Staff and Wire Reports

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