In a report issued at the start of a March 20-31 U.N. meeting in Curitiba, Brazil, the Secretariat of the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity confirms what anyone who's been paying attention already knows:
“In effect, we are currently responsible for the sixth major extinction event in the history of earth, and the greatest since the dinosaurs disappeared, 65 million years ago,” said the 92-page Global Biodiversity Outlook 2 report.Not too animal friendly of us, eh?
A rising human population of 6.5 billion was undermining the environment for animals and plants via pollution, expanding cities, deforestation, introduction of “alien species” and global warming, [the report] said.Not so surprisingly, I suppose, it doesn't mention agriculture, though deforestation is a big part of that. However, the article does quote the report as saying
“The direct causes of biodiversity loss -- habitat change, over-exploitation, the introduction of invasive alien species, nutrient loading and climate change -- show no sign of abating."That sounds much more like it implicates modern agriculture, certainly by extension, if not directly. The report suggested a number of steps to reach the U.N.'s goal of slowing the losses by 2010:
It urged better efforts to safeguard habitats ranging from deserts to jungles and better management of resources from fresh water to timber. About 12 percent of the earth’s land surface is in protected areas, against just 0.6 percent of the oceans.The report was critical of current efforts (or lack thereof) to ensure enough cash and research to reach this goal, as well as insufficient progress in the planning and implementation of biodiversity decisions, much less improving our understanding of biodiversity.
It also recommended more work to curb pollution and to rein in industrial emissions of gases released by burning fossil fuels and widely blamed for global warming.
Categories: environment | wildlife | extinction | biodiversity
