BBC Stopping the next extinction wave

[Guest guest]

Stopping the next extinction wave

By Richard Black

Environment Correspondent, BBC News website

 

 

We hope conservationists will use our findings

to pre-empt future species losses rather than

concentrating solely on those species already

under threat

Marcel Cardillo, Imperial College London

A scientific study pinpoints 20 areas in the

world where animals are not at immediate risk of

extinction, but where the risk is likely to arise

soon.

 

The regions include Greenland and the Siberian

tundra, Caribbean islands and parts of South East

Asia.

 

The London-based research team believes its work

will help conservationists prevent extinctions

through early intervention - prevention, not cure.

 

It is reported in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

 

The study concentrates on a concept called " latent extinction risk " .

 

This means animals are not under threat right

now, and may not be classified as in danger

according to the Red List, the internationally

accepted database of threatened species.

 

But the pattern of human development means they

could be sent on a fast track to extinction in

the near future, perhaps overtaking other species

currently in higher-risk classifications.

 

" We can see this leap-frogging happening now,

for example with the Guatemalan howler monkey,

which was classified as being on the 'least

concern' list in 2000 but which moved to the

'endangered' list in 2004 as it lost much of its

forest habitat, " said study leader Dr Marcel

Cardillo, from Imperial College London.

 

" We hope conservationists will use our findings

to pre-empt future species losses rather than

concentrating solely on those species already

under threat. "

 

Ox and reindeer

 

Re-inforcing the conclusions of other groups,

they find that species at particular risk tend to

have relatively large bodies, live in small areas

and reproduce relatively slowly; these include,

they say, the North American reindeer, the musk

ox, the Seychelles flying fox and the brown lemur.

 

Perhaps surprisingly, areas identified as

containing species with a particularly large

latent extinction risk exclude well-known

biodiversity hotspots such as the Amazon and

Congo basins, and include sub-Polar regions in

northern Canada, northern Russia and Greenland.

 

" I am surprised that paper doesn't pick up the

Amazon and Congo basins, regions where there is a

large number of animal species with small

ranges, " observed Thomas Brooks of the Center for

Applied Biodiversity Science (Cabs) in Washington

DC, a division of Conservation International.

 

One reason for this may be poor information.

Some databases of plants and animals are badly in

need of revision - a flaw which scientific groups

led by IUCN, the World Conservation Union, are

trying to address through improving background

studies of various species and ecosystems.

 

Ahead of the curve

 

Conservation International is one of a number of

groups which already tries to mount

" preventative " programmes rather than waiting

until very few members of a species remain.

 

" It's widely recognised among conservation

practitioners that wherever we have the

opportunity we should get ahead of the curve and

implement proactive conservation measures, " Dr

Brooks told the BBC News website.

 

" Proactive solutions tend to be cheaper and easier.

 

" But the magnitude of human impacts on

biodiversity is such that most conservation

programmes will inevitably be reactive. "

 

Some " last-chance " programmes have proved

successful. In Yellowstone National Park, grizzly

bears have recovered enough to come off the US

endangered species list; while in the UK, numbers

of stone curlew breeding pairs have doubled over

the last 20 years.

 

Through the Convention on Biological Diversity,

the international community has set itself the

goal of making a " substantial reduction in the

rate of loss of biological diversity " by 2010.

 

But overall, extinctions are coming at 100 to

1,000 times the normal background rate, according

to the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, a vast

attempt to audit the Earth's ecological health

which was published last year.

 

It concluded that a third of all amphibians, a

fifth of mammals and an eighth of all birds are

now threatened with extinction.

 

It also concluded that although humanity is the

cause, humanity will ultimately be among the

losers.

 

Reducing biodiversity will, it says, impact

societies at a number of levels, including

diminishing the availability of economically

valuable natural goods such as timber and

compromising " ecosystem services " such as fresh

water and biodegrading bacteria.

 

 

1: Northern Canada and Alaska

2: Greenland

3: Siberian tundra

4: Eastern Canadian forests

5: Bahamas

6: East Indian highlands

7: Southern Polynesia

8: Lesser Antilles

9: Andaman and Nicobar Islands

10: Borneo, Sulawesi, Moluccas

11: New Guinea

12: Patagonian coast

13: Peninsular Malaysia, Sumatra and West Java

14: Nusa Tengarra

15: Tasmania and the Bass Strait

16: Melanesia

17: Indian Ocean islands

 

 

Richard.Black-INTERNET

 

Story from BBC NEWS:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/sci/tech/4780876.stm

 

Published: 2006/03/07 00:39:12 GMT

 

© BBC MMVI

 

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