Biodiversity Loss: A European View of the Numbers

Environment News Service (ENS)

Biodiversity Loss: A European View of the Numbers

BRUSSELS, Belgium, February 10, 2004 (ENS) - The European Commission will be seeking agreement on concrete measures to halt the decline in global biodiversity at the international conference taking place in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia through February 20. During this 7th Conference of the Parties (COP7) to the Convention on Biological Diversity, the 188 parties, including the Commission, will promote actions to reduce global biodiversity loss.

Biodiversity, short for biological diversity, means the diversity of life in all its forms - the diversity of species, of genetic variations within one species, and of ecosystems.

The Biodiversity Convention was adopted during the 1992 UN Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. The Convention's three main goals are:

the conservation of biodiversity
the sustainable use of its components
the fair and equitable sharing of the benefits arising from the commercial and other utilization of genetic resources

conference

Delegates meet in the plenary hall at the COP7 of the Convention on Biological Diversity in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. (Photo courtesy IISD)

Experts agree that global biodiversity protection depends on the establishment of a network of protected areas across all continents in which threatened species and ecosystems can survive.

The Commission will press for a decision in Kuala Lumpur on protected areas, with clear guidance on how they should be managed. COP7 should adopt the goal of having in place a global network of well managed regional and national protected areas on land by 2010 and at sea by 2012.

"Kuala Lumpur must be a rallying point for action," said Environment Commissioner Margot Wallstrom, who will attend the ministerial part of the conference on February 18 and 19.

"We only have six years to go until 2010, the year by which world leaders have committed themselves to significantly reduce biodiversity loss. But global biodiversity is declining unchecked. We simply cannot afford to fail. The first ones to suffer from vanishing ecosystems will be the world's poor whose livelihoods often depend directly on biodiversity."

To promote understanding of how much biodiversity is being lost, the European Commission is offering some statistics.

Facts and Figures:

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Greenpeace and Wilderness Society activists in their three month tree sit at the Styx Valley, Tasmania, Australia send a message to the 2,000 delegates meeting at the Convention on Biological Diversity in Kuala Lumpur. (Photo courtesy Greenpeace)

Over the last 200 years, human population growth, overexploitation of natural resources, and environmental degradation have resulted in an accelerating decline in global biodiversity. Species are diminishing in numbers and becoming extinct, and ecosystems are suffering damage and disappearing.

An estimated 80 percent of the original forest that covered the Earth 8,000 years ago has been cleared, damaged or fragmented.

Some experts assess the rate at which species are becoming extinct at 1,000 to 10,000 times higher than the natural rate would be.

A sample of 23 common farmland birds and 24 common woodland birds monitored in 18 European countries show a decline in numbers by 71 percent between 1980 and 2002.

How many species are threatened with extinction? Nobody knows.

The total number of recorded living species is around 1.75 million. But more than two thirds are insects and other invertebrates, which are extremely difficult to monitor. An estimate of the real number of species on Earth is 14 million.

According to a study published in the journal "Nature" in January 2004, climate change could wipe out a third of the Earth's species by 2050.

Exactly 12,259 species are known by IUCN-the World Conservation Union, to be threatened with extinction. IUCN keeps the world's inventory of the conservation status of animals and plants, compiling data from thousands of scientists and conservationists worldwide.

For its 2003 "Red List of Threatened Species", IUCN was able to evaluate the conservation status of two percent of 1.53 million species for which it has descriptions. The only two well monitored groups are birds and mammals, so the IUCN was able to evaluate 100 percent of birds and 99 percent of mammals for threatened status.

The continent of Europe is estimated to be home to more than 200,000 animal and plant species. These are relatively small numbers compared with other regions of the world, but the proportion of threatened species is far higher.

Currently, every fourth mammal, 24 percent, and every eighth bird, 12 percent, is facing a high risk of extinction.

tiger

Although there may have been as many as 100,000 tigers in 1900, today there are no more than 7,500 remaining in the wild and there may be as few as 5,000. These numbers are based on the most recent statistics available to the IUCN/SSC Cat Specialist Group. (Photo by I. Ledgerwood courtesy TRAFFIC)

Globally, threatened mammals include African and Asiatic lions and elephants, orangutans, tigers, rhinos, and Chinese alligators.

Across the European continent, 42 percent of mammals are threatened, 15 percent of birds, 45 percent of butterflies, 30 percent of amphibians, 45 percent of reptiles and 52 percent of freshwater fish.

The most endangered big cat in the world is the Iberian lynx. Once common in Spain and Portugal, there are only a few hundred left, which live in a few isolated pockets in Spain.

The last known Bucardo, a Pyrenean mountain goat, died in January 2000 in a Spanish national park. Its body was found by forest rangers.

The European mink, the Arctic fox, various types of squirrels and lizards, and all European dolphins, seals and whales are all threatened with extinction.

Many ecosystems have already been lost, and many others are at risk.

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Salt marsh flowers in an English wetland (Photo by Ian Britton courtesy Freefoto)

Ecosystems are self-regulating communities of plants and animals interacting with each other and with their non-living environment - forests, wetlands, mountains, lakes, rivers, deserts and agricultural landscapes. Ecosystems are vulnerable to interference as pressure on one component can upset the whole balance. They are also very vulnerable to pollution.

The world's forests house about half of global biodiversity. But they are disappearing at a rate of 0.8 percent per year. Tropical forests are vanishing at an annual rate of four percent.

The European Union has lost more than half of its wetlands once so biodiverse and species-rich.

Up to a third of the world's coral reefs have already perished and another third is under threat.

Only 10 percent of the world's biodiverse areas and one percent of the world's oceans are protected - sometimes not very effectively.

Human activities are the main threats to biodiversity.

The human population has grown from approximately 1.65 billion in 1900 to an estimated 6.3 billion today. In 50 years, the UN predicts a world population of nine billion.

traffic

Traffic congestion at the A1 Gateshead Western Bypass, England (Photo by Ian Britton courtesy FreeFoto)

Human population growth means growing demands for space and food. Urban sprawl and intensive agriculture and forestry encroach on habitats.

Extension of road, rail and electricity networks fragments habitats and scares away some species.

Overexploitation of natural resources means we consume too much of a species or of goods that ecosystems provide. It also includes excessive hunting, collecting and trade in species and parts of species.

Pollution affects the health of animals and plants as much as human health. Environmental disasters such as oil spills have devastating consequences for birds and the marine fauna and flora.

Climate change is predicted, by the end of this century, to raise global temperature by between 1.4� and 5.8� Celsius and the sea level by between nine and 88 cm. Many species will not be able to adapt or to move to other regions. Over the last century, the average temperature on Earth has increased by about 0.6� Celsius and the sea level has risen by 10 to 20 cm. The 1990s were the warmest decade in the last 1,000 years.

Invasive alien species are species that enter an ecosystem where they don't occur naturally and then thrive and overwhelm endemic species. Often, they are taken there by humans.

Due to overfishing, 80 percent of the fish stocks in EU waters face collapse or are of unknown status.

In 2001, 40 percent of all EU fish catches were taken from stocks considered to be below safe biological limits. For certain types of fish, notably cod, haddock, whiting, hake and other round fish as well as salmon and sea trout, the percentage was as high as 60 percent.

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