Scientists were yesterday to deliver a comprehensive assessment of the state of biodiversity — the animals and plants that humankind depends on to survive but has driven into a mass species extinction.
The work of about 600 scientists over three years, four reports will be unveiled in Medellin, Colombia, under the umbrella of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES).
The diagnosis is expected to be dire.
“If we continue the way we are, yes the... sixth mass extinction, the first one ever caused by humans, will continue,” IPBES chairman Robert Watson said ahead of the much-anticipated release.
However, the good news: “It’s not too late” to slow the rate of loss, he said.
Scientists say humankind’s voracious consumption and wanton destruction of nature has unleashed the first mass species die-off since the demise of the dinosaurs — only the sixth on our planet in half-a-billion years.
The first major biodiversity assessment in 13 years comes in the same week that the world’s last male northern white rhino died in Kenya — a stark reminder of the stakes.
“The IPBES conference is going to tell us that the situation is continuing to deteriorate, they are going to tell us some ecosystems are being brought to the brink of collapse,” WWF director-general Marco Lambertini said on Thursday. “The IPBES is going to make a strong case for the importance of protecting nature for our own well-being.”
The volunteer experts who compiled the reports, drawing on data from about 10,000 scientific publications, have been discussing their contents with representatives of the IPBES’ 129 member countries in Medellin since Saturday last week.
The contents of five summary reports for government policymakers, each about 40 pages long, were negotiated word-for-word, line-by-line.
The summary reports are condensed versions of five monumental assessments, each about 600-900 pages, which are to be published only after the conference.
The first four summaries were released simultaneously yesterday — one for each of four world regions — the Americas, Africa, the Asia-Pacific, and Europe and Central Asia. A fifth report, due on Monday, will focus on the global state of soil, which is fast being degraded through pollution, forest-destruction, mining and unsustainable farming methods that deplete its nutrients.
Together, the five assessments cover the entire Earth except for Antarctica and the open oceans — those waters beyond national jurisdiction.
The entire process has cost about US$5 million.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not