Species on decline
ASIA-PACIFIC REGION’S FISH STOCKS MAY RUN OUT BY 2048 IF DRASTIC ACTION IS NOT TAKEN
Human activity has driven animals and plants into decline, putting our own lives at risk
Human activity has driven animals and plants into decline in every region of the world, putting our own well-being at risk by over-harvesting and polluting, a comprehensive species survey warned on Friday.
Asia-Pacific fish stocks may run out by 2048 and more than half of Africa’s bird and mammal species could be lost by 2100 unless drastic measures are taken, according to four comprehensive reports released at a major environmental conference in Medellin, Colombia.
Up to 90 per cent of AsiaPacific corals will suffer “severe degradation” by 2050, while in Europe and Central Asia, almost a third of known marine fish populations, and 42 per cent of land animals and plants, are in decline.
In the Americas, just under a quarter of species assessed are at risk of extinction.
“This alarming trend endangers economies, livelihoods, food security and the quality of life of people everywhere,” warned the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES).
Compiled by nearly 600 scientists over three years, the reports underline that nature provides humans with food, clean water, energy, and regulates Earth’s climate — just about everything we need to survive and thrive.
One of the reports found that Nature’s contribution to people can be in the order of thousands of dollars per hectare per year.
“We’re undermining our own future well-being,” IPBES chairman Robert Watson said.
“Biodiversity continues to be lost across all of the regions of the globe. We’re losing species, we’re degrading ecosystems ... if we continue ‘business as usual’, we will continue to lose biodiversity at increasing rates.”
The IPBES assessment divided the world into four regions — the whole planet except for the Antarctic and the open seas.