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UXBRIDGE, Canada—The world has failed to slow the accelerating extinction crisis despite 17 years of national and international efforts since the great hopes raised at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. The last big promise to act was in 2003, when government ministers from 123 countries committed to reduce the rate of biodiversity loss by 2010. Experts convening an international meeting in South Africa agree that target will not be met next year, which is also the International Year of Biodiversity. “It is hard to imagine a more important priority than protecting the ecosystem services underpinned by biodiversity,” said Georgina Mace of Imperial College in London, and vice chairman of the international Diversitas program, a broad science-based collaborative. “We will certainly miss the target for reducing the rate of biodiversity loss by 2010,” said Mace in a statement. Biodiversity is not just weird-looking animals and pretty birds. It is the diversity of life on Earth that comprises the ecosystems that provide vital services, including climate regulation, food, fiber, clean water and air. By some estimates, 12,000 species go extinct every year, and the rate is accelerating. Akin to a cataclysmic asteroid, pollution, logging, overexploitation, consumption, land use changes and engineering projects have produced the planet’s sixth great extinction of species. |
