Planet in peril, but it’s not too late

PEOPLE are putting nature in more trouble now than at any other time in human history, with extinction looming over 1 million species of plants and animals, scientists said yesterday.

But it’s not too late to fix the problem, according to the UN’s first comprehensive report on biodiversity.

“We’ve dramatically reconfigured life on the planet,” report co-chairperson Eduardo Brondizio of Indiana University said at a press conference.

Species loss is accelerating to a rate tens or hundreds of times faster than in the past, the report said. More than half a million species on land “have insufficient habitat for long-term survival” and are likely to go extinct, unless their habitats are restored.

“Humanity is unwittingly attempting to throttle the living planet and humanity’s own future,” said George Mason University biologist Thomas Lovejoy, who has been called the godfather of biodiversity for his research. He was not part of the report.

“The biological diversity of this planet has been really hammered, and this is really our last chance to address all of that,” Lovejoy said.

Conservation scientists from around the world convened in Paris to issue the report. The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) included more than 450 researchers.

Some nations hit harder by the losses – like small island countries – wanted more in the report. Others, such as the US, were cautious in the language they sought, but they agreed “we’re in trouble,” said Rebecca Shaw, the chief scientist for the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). “This is the strongest call we’ve seen for reversing the trends on the loss of nature,” Shaw said.

The findings are not just about saving plants and animals, but about preserving a world that’s becoming harder for humans to live in, said Robert Watson, a former Nasa and British scientist who headed the report.

“We are threatening the potential food security, water security, human health and social fabric,” Watson said.

“The key to remember is, it’s not a terminal diagnosis,” said report co-author Andrew Purvis of the Natural History Museum in London.

Fighting climate change and saving species are equally important, and working on both environmental problems should go hand in hand. Both problems exacerbate each other because a warmer world means fewer species, and a less biodiverse world means fewer trees and plants to remove heat-trapping carbon dioxide.

Five times in the past, Earth has undergone mass extinctions where much of life on Earth blinked out, like the one that killed the dinosaurs. Watson said the report was careful not to call what’s going on now as a sixth big die-off because current levels don’t come close to the 75% level in past mass extinctions.

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. Individuals can help with simple changes to the way they eat and use energy, said the co-chairperson of the report, Josef Settele. That doesn’t mean becoming a vegetarian or vegan, but balancing meat, vegetables and fruit, and walking and biking more, Watson said.