Humans threaten 1 million species with extinction


On land, in the seas, in the sky, the devastating impact of humans on nature is laid bare in a compelling UN report.

One million animal and plant species are now threatened with extinction.

3 years in the making, this global assessment of nature draws on 15,000 reference materials, and has been compiled by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). It runs to 1,800 pages.
The brief, 40-page "summary for policymakers", published today at a meeting in Paris, is perhaps the most powerful indictment of how humans have treated their only home.
The world's population has doubled since 1970, the global economy has grown four-fold, while international trade has increased 10 times over.
To feed, clothe and give energy to this burgeoning world, forests have been cleared at astonishing rates, especially in tropical areas.
Between 1980 and 2000, 100 million hectares of tropical forest were lost, mainly from cattle ranching in South America and palm oil plantations in South East Asia.
Faring worse than forests are wetlands, with only 13% of those present in 1700 still in existence in the year 2000.
Our cities have expanded rapidly, with urban areas doubling since 1992.

What's behind this crisis?



The report's authors say there are a number of direct drivers of which land use change is the primary one.
This essentially means the replacement of grassland with intensive crops, or replacing ancient woodland with a plantation forest, or the clearing of forests to grow crops. This is happening in many parts of the world, especially in the tropics.
Since 1980, more than half of the increase in agriculture has been at the expense of intact forests.
It's a similar story at sea.
Read more Important article from BBC : https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-48169783

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