Native Plant Conservation Campaign News: International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Global Forest Watch data show species and habitat loss worsening, threatening human societies and economies
July 23, 2018
According the Guardian UK, “scientists say the loss of biodiversity is more of a threat than climate change, because it erodes Earth’s capacity to provide clean air, fresh water, food and stable weather.”
Such essential
ecosystem services are among the many vital benefits to human societies and economies delivered by diverse, healthy native plant communities and ecosystems.
Scientists quoted in the Guardian UK, said that through the accelerating loss of biological diversity and the ecosystem services it produces, “we are endangering the life support systems of our planet and putting the future of our own species in jeopardy.”
In related bad news,
Global Forest Watch recently reported that forest loss in 2017 was 29.4 million hectares (~73 million acres) worldwide, the second highest recorded since monitoring began in 2001.
The Guardian UK states, “[f]orest losses are a huge contributor to the carbon emissions driving global warming, about the same as total emissions from the US, which is the world’s second biggest polluter. Deforestation destroys wildlife habitat and is a key reason for
populations of wildlife having plunged by half in the last 40 years, starting a
sixth mass extinction.”
Destruction by humans, much of it illegal, and increasingly intense wildfires driven by climate change, are responsible for the bulk of forest losses.
