(IN): The New Age of Extinction

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The New Age of Extinction

By BRYAN WALSH / MADAGASCAR <javascript:void(0)>

 

There are at least 8 million unique species of life on the planet, if not

far more, and you could be forgiven for believing that all of them can be

found in Andasibe. Walking through this rain forest in Madagascar is like

stepping into the library of life. Sunlight seeps through the silky fringes

of the Ravenea louvelii, an endangered palm found, like so much else on this

African island, nowhere else. Leaf-tailed geckos cling to the trees, cloaked

in green. A fat Parson's chameleon lies lazily on a branch, beady eyes

scanning for dinner. But the animal I most hoped to find, I don't see at

first; I hear it, though — a sustained groan that electrifies the forest

quiet. My Malagasy guide, Marie Razafindrasolo, finds the source of the

sound perched on a branch. It is the black-and-white indri, largest of the

lemurs — a type of small primate found only in Madagascar. The cry is known

as a spacing call, a warning to other indris to keep their distance, to

prevent competition for food. But there's not much risk of interlopers. The

species — like many other lemurs, like many other animals in Madagascar,

like so much of life on Earth — is endangered and dwindling fast.

 

Madagascar — which separated from India 80 million to 100 million years ago

before eventually settling off the southeastern coast of Africa — is in many

ways an Earth apart. All that time in geographic isolation made Madagascar a

Darwinian playground, its animals and plants evolving into forms utterly

original. They include species as strange-looking as the pygmy mouse lemur —

a chirping, palm-size mammal that may be the smallest primate on the planet

— and as haunting as the carnivorous fossa, a catlike animal about 30 in.

long. Some 90% of the island's plants and about 70% of its animals are

endemic, meaning that they are found only in Madagascar. But what makes life

on the island unique also makes it uniquely vulnerable. " If we lose these

animals on Madagascar, they're gone forever, " says Russell Mittermeier,

president of the wildlife group Conservation International (CI).

 

That loss seems likelier than ever because the animals are under threat as

never before. Once lushly forested, Madagascar has seen more than 80% of its

original vegetation cut down or burned since humans arrived at least 1,500

years ago, fragmenting habitats and leaving animals effectively homeless.

Unchecked hunting wiped out a number of large species, and today mining,

logging and energy exploration threaten those that remain. " You have an area

the size of New Jersey in Madagascar that is still under forest, and all

this incredible diversity is crammed into it, " says Mittermeier, an American

who has been traveling to the country for more than 25 years. " We're very

concerned. "

 

Madagascar is a conservation hot spot — a term for a region that is very

biodiverse and particularly threatened — and while that makes the island

special, it is hardly alone. Conservationists estimate that extinctions

worldwide are occurring at a pace that is up to 1,000 times as great as

history's background rate before human beings began proliferating. Worse,

that die-off could be accelerating.

 

*Price of Extinction*

There have been five extinction waves in the planet's history — including

the Permian extinction 250 million years ago, when an estimated 70% of all

terrestrial animals and 96% of all marine creatures vanished, and, most

recently, the Cretaceous event 65 million years ago, which ended the reign

of the dinosaurs. Though scientists have directly assessed the viability of

fewer than 3% of the world's described species, the sample polling of animal

populations so far suggests that we may have entered what will be the

planet's sixth great extinction wave. And this time the cause isn't an

errant asteroid or megavolcanoes. It's us.

 

Through our growing numbers, our thirst for natural resources and, most of

all, climate change — which, by one reckoning, could help carry off 20% to

30% of all species before the end of the century — we're shaping an Earth

that will be biologically impoverished. A 2008 assessment by the

International Union for Conservation of Nature found that nearly 1 in 4

mammals worldwide was at risk for extinction, including endangered species

like the famous Tasmanian devil. Overfishing and acidification of the oceans

are threatening marine species as diverse as the bluefin tuna and

reef-forming corals. " Just about everything is going down, " says Simon

Stuart, head of the IUCN's species-survival commission. " And when I think

about the impact of climate change, it really scares me. "

 

Scary for conservationists, yes, but the question arises, Why should it

matter to the rest of us? After all, nearly all the species that were ever

alive in the past are gone today. Evolution demands extinction. When we're

using the term extinction to talk about the fate of the U.S. auto industry,

does it really matter if we lose species like the Holdridge's toad, the

Yangtze River dolphin and the golden toad, all of which have effectively

disappeared in recent years? What does the loss of a few species among

millions matter?

 

For one thing, we're animals too, dependent on this planet like every other

form of life. The more species living in an ecosystem, the healthier and

more productive it is, which matters for us — a recent study by the World

Wildlife Fund (WWF) estimates the economic value of the Amazon rain forest's

ecosystem services to be up to $100 per hectare (about 2½ acres). When we

pollute and deforest and make a mess of the ecological web, we're taking out

mortgages on the Earth that we can't pay back — and those loans will come

due. Then there are the undiscovered organisms and animals that could serve

as the basis of needed medicines — as the original ingredients of aspirin

were derived from the herb meadowsweet — unless we unwittingly destroy them

first. " We have plenty of stories about how the loss of biodiversity creates

problems for people, " says Carter Roberts, WWF's president.

 

Forests razed can grow back, polluted air and water can be cleaned — but

extinction is forever. And we're not talking about losing just a few

species. In fact, conservationists quietly acknowledge that we've entered an

age of triage, when we might have to decide which species can truly be

saved. The worst-case scenarios of habitat loss and climate change — and

that's the pathway we seem to be on — show the planet losing hundreds of

thousands to millions of species, many of which we haven't even discovered

yet. The result could be a virtual genocide of much of the animal world and

an irreversible impoverishment of our planet. Humans would survive, but we

would have doomed ourselves to what naturalist E.O. Wilson calls the

Eremozoic Era — the Age of Loneliness.

 

So if you care about tigers and tamarins, rhinos and orangutans, if you

believe Earth is more than just a home for 6.7 billion human beings and

counting, then you should be scared. But fear shouldn't leave us paralyzed.

Environmental groups worldwide are responding with new methods to new

threats to wildlife. In hot spots like Madagascar and Brazil,

conservationists are working with locals on the ground, ensuring that the

protection of endangered species is tied to the welfare of the people who

live closest to them. A strategy known as avoided deforestation goes

further, incentivizing environmental protection by putting a price on the

carbon locked in rain forests and allowing countries to trade credits in an

international market, provided that the carbon stays in the trees and is not

cut or burned. And as global warming forces animals to migrate in order to

escape changing climates, conservationists are looking to create protected

corridors that would give the species room to roam. It's uncertain that any

of this will stop the sixth extinction wave, let alone preserve the

biodiversity we still enjoy, but we have no choice but to try. " We have a

window of opportunity, " says Kassie Siegel, director of the climate, energy

and air program of the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD). " But it's

slamming shut. "

 

*To Save the Species, Save the People*

Madagascar, which Mittermeier calls the " hottest of the hot spots, " is where

all the new strategies can be road-tested. In 2003, after decades when

conservation was barely on the government's agenda, then-President Marc

Ravalomanana announced that the government would triple Madagascar's

protected areas over the following five years. That decision helped

underfunded parks like Andasibe's, which protects some of the last untouched

forest on the island. " You can't save a species without saving the habitat

where it lives, " says WWF's Roberts.

 

Do that right, and you can even turn a profit in the process. In Madagascar,

half the revenues from national parks are meant to go to the surrounding

communities. The reserves in turn help sustain an industry for local guides

like Razafindrasolo. In a country as poor as Madagascar — where 61% of the

people live on less than $1 a day — it makes sense to give locals an

economic stake in preserving wildlife rather than destroying it. " If you

don't get the support of the people living near a conservation area, it's

just a matter of time before you'll lose [the area], " says Steven Sanderson,

president of the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS).

 

Well-run ecotourism can provide support for conservation, but even the best

parks might be hard pressed to compete with the potential revenues from

logging, poaching or mining. The strategy of avoided deforestation, however,

offers much more. Rain forests like those in Madagascar contain billions and

billions of tons of carbon; destroying the trees and releasing the carbon

not only kills local species but also speeds global warming. Proposals in

the global climate negotiations would allow countries to offset some of

their greenhouse-gas emissions by paying rain-forest nations to preserve

their trees. It's win-win, with both the climate and the critters getting a

boost. In eastern Madagascar, CI and WCS are working together to protect

about 865,000 acres in the Makira Forest with a range of carbon investors

that include Mitsubishi and Pearl Jam. Closer to Andasibe, CI and its

partners are hiring villagers to plant trees on eroded land, which creates

corridors to connect fragmented habitats, may earn carbon revenues and

provides needed employment. " We're bringing back the shelter of the forests,

and we don't have to cut trees, " says Herve Tahirimalala, a Malagasy who is

paid $100 a month to work on the project.

 

The corridors created by CI's Andasibe tree-planting program show how a

small tweak can reduce the species-killing effects of climate change — but

also how longer-term fixes are needed. Fragmented habitats are problematic

because many endangered species wind up trapped in green oases surrounded by

degraded land. As global warming changes the climate, species will try to

migrate, often right into the path of development and extinction. What good

is a nature reserve — fought for, paid for and protected — if global warming

renders it unlivable? " Climate change could undermine the conservation work

of whole generations, " says Larry Schweiger, president of the National

Wildlife Federation. " It turns out you can't save species without saving the

sky. "

 

That will mean reducing carbon emissions as fast as possible. In the U.S.,

the CBD has made an art out of using the Endangered Species Act, which

mandates that the government prevent the extinction of listed species, to

force Washington to act on global warming. The CBD's Siegel led a successful

campaign to get the Bush Administration to list the polar bear as threatened

by climate change, and she expects more species to follow. " Polar bears are

the canaries in the coal mine, " says Siegel.

 

*Why We Can't Wait*

What's especially frightening is how vulnerable even the best conservation

work can be to rapid changes — both climatic and governmental. Over the past

couple of months, Madagascar has fallen into a political abyss, with Andry

Rajoelina — the former mayor of Antananarivo, the capital — forcing former

President Ravalomanana from office on the heels of deadly protests. As a

result, development aid to the desperately poor country has been halted, and

conservation work has been disrupted. Reports have filtered back of armed

gangs stepping into the vacuum to illegally log the nation's few remaining

forests. " They're ripping out valuable timber as quickly as they can, " says

Mittermeier.

 

News like that can tempt even the staunchest defenders of wildlife to simply

surrender. And why shouldn't they? In a world where hundreds of millions of

human beings still go hungry and the global recession has left all but the

wealthiest fearing for their future, it's easy to wonder why we should be

concerned about the dwindling of the planet's biodiversity.

 

The answer is that we can't afford not to. The same natural qualities that

sustain wildlife — clean water, untainted land, unbroken forests —

ultimately sustain us as well, whether we live in a green jungle or a

concrete one. But there is an innate value to untrammeled biodiversity too —

one that goes beyond our own survival. When that is lost, we are

irretrievably diminished. " We live on a very special planet — the only

planet that we know has life, " says Mittermeier. " For me, conservation is

ultimately a moral obligation and simply the right thing to do. " That leaves

us a choice. We can save life on this special planet, or be its unwitting

executioner.

 

 

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