When the last known bucardo, a type of Pyrenean mountain goat, died in January 2000 in a Spanish national park, veterinarians took a tissue sample from its ear, in case they ever needed to clone the animal.
What a damning indictment of our times. The children's rhyme tells how the animals went into Noah's ark "two by two." Would the modern equivalent see the 12,256 species that are at risk of extinction filing into the laboratory one by one to donate tissue samples?
Many people had a lot to say about the recently published study that suggests global warming could wipe out a third of the planet's species by 2050. One comment often made in the attempt to dismiss the findings is "this is Darwinism -- extinction is natural." But experts estimate that the current rate at which species are becoming extinct is 1,000 to 10,000 times higher than the natural rate.
And this is the first time that one species -- humankind -- is on the way to being responsible for the extinction of other species, and the ecosystems they form. Yet humankind is totally dependent on other forms of life -- by such action we are recklessly putting ourselves at risk.
This loss of biodiversity will come back to haunt us. Ecosystems provide goods and services that we cannot live without. For example, forests oxygenate the air, purify water and turn waste into nutrients. They prevent erosion and flooding and moderate the climate. They provide us with timber, food and medicines.
A glance at the situation in western Europe should tell us enough: 335 of the vertebrate species are at risk of extinction. They include the Iberian lynx, the European mink and all sea mammals -- dolphins, seals and whales. Almost 40 percent of the bird species in Europe are under threat, 40 percent of butterflies are endangered, and 80 percent of fish stocks face collapse or are at unknown status. More than 800 of the region's plant species are threatened. We have lost more than half of our once biodiverse wetlands, many of our forests are under stress, and our marine environment is in
disarray. Globally, the situation is not much better.
Experts who have tried to put a value on all the goods and services that ecosystems supply us with estimate it at 26 trillion euros (US$32.6 trillion) annually -- twice the global production resulting from our own activities.
Humankind has destroyed or is diminishing the habitats of other species by building towns and roads, polluting the environment and over-exploiting natural resources. It has introduced alien species where they do not belong, creating havoc in many regions of the world. And, as if this were not enough, it is pumping massive amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
There is no doubt that the world has become warmer over the past century. The average temperature has increased by about 0.6oC and the sea level has risen by 10 to 20cm. There is clear evidence that the 1990s were the warmest 10 years in the past 1,000 years. The record temperatures last summer showed what climate change could do. In France, 10,000 people died from heat stress combined with increased ozone pollution, forest fires raged in southern Europe and the energy supply was endangered in several countries due to water shortages. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change anticipates a further rise in global temperatures of between 1.4oC and 5.8oC and a rise in sea levels of between 9cm and 88cm by the end of the century.
The climate change study recently published in the journal Nature and reported by the Guardian shows us what effects this will have on biodiversity. Both are projections -- but are projections based on advanced scientific models and robust data.
In order to stem these statistics, the Kyoto Protocol must be forcefully implemented to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and governments must commit to new targets when the first commitment period runs out in 2012.
There are also the international commitments on biodiversity. During the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, governments agreed to "significantly reduce" global biodiversity loss, while the EU goal, set by its leaders in 2001, is to halt biodiversity loss by 2010.
On Monday, a conference of the 188 countries that are parties to the 1992 convention on biodiversity will be held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. This meeting must become a rendezvous for action, and the recent study should serve as a wake-up call.
We need to set up a global network of protected areas in which our threatened species can survive. At the moment, just 10 percent of biodiverse areas and 1 percent of oceans are protected -- some of them rather badly. We need clear criteria for designating protected areas and properly managing them.
We need strong monitoring and review mechanisms to know what is going on across the world.
That is why we must agree on global indicators to measure biodiversity and assess policy effectiveness.
Most importantly, we need a strong global partnership for biodiversity. Every government has to do its bit.
This requires not only the protection of specific habitats but the integration of biodiversity issues in other policies such as agriculture, fisheries, transport and economic development.
It requires developed countries to support developing countries in preserving their biodiversity: financial support as well as technology transfer, know-how and capacity building.
Humankind is the species that appears to be coming out on top in the current struggle for survival.
But we should not believe that by using our scientific advancement we can simply engineer new species and recreate the complex system that is nature.
The greatest risk faced by humankind is apparently our own arrogance.
Margot Wallstrom is the EU environment commissioner.
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