World fails to slow mass extinction of animals, plants

WASHINGTON, DC, April 29, 2010 (ENS) – World leaders have failed to fulfill their commitments to reduce the global rate of biodiversity loss by 2010, and have instead overseen “alarming” biodiversity declines, finds the first assessment of how the targets expressed in the 2002 Convention on Biological Diversity have not been met. Since 1970, human activities have reduced animal populations by 30 percent, the area of mangroves and sea grasses by 20 percent and the coverage of living corals by 40 percent, the assessment finds. “Our analysis shows that governments have failed to deliver on the commitments they made in 2002: biodiversity is still being lost as fast as ever, and we have made little headway in reducing the pressures on species, habitats and ecosystems,” said the paper’s lead author Dr. Stuart Butchart of the United Nations Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre and BirdLife International. Published today in the journal Science, the assessment compiling more than 30 indicators that measure different aspects of biodiversity such as changes in species’ populations and risk of extinction, habitat extent and community composition. The study found no evidence for a significant reduction in the rate of decline of biodiversity, and also found that the pressures facing biodiversity continue to increase. “Our data show that 2010 will not be the year that biodiversity loss was halted, but it needs to be the year in which we start taking the issue seriously and substantially increase our efforts to take care of what is left of our planet,” Dr. Butchart said. …