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Vanishing Biodiversity IS SPECIES LOSS APPROACHING a “TIPPING POINT”?

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Vanishing Biodiversity IS SPECIES LOSS APPROACHING a “TIPPING POINT”? NOV. 6, 2012 VOLUME 6, NUMBER 21 PAGES 497-520 WWW.GLOBALRESEARCHER.COM Vanishing Biodiversity IS SPECIES LOSS APPROACHING A “TIPPING POINT”? arth’s biodiversity — the profusion of plants and animals that work together to support life — contin - ues to shrink. Species are going extinct at a rate most scientists find alarming — possibly as many as 150 a day — while the populations of many surviving species are declining rapidly. Endangered species E range from plants and large animals such as tigers and rhinoceroses to smaller creatures such as in - sects and honeybees. All play key roles in sustaining healthy ecosystems, which provide a variety of costly environ - mental services for free, such as filtering water and scrubbing carbon from the air. Some researchers believe the Earth could be approaching a so-called tipping point, in which biodiversity loss causes global ecosystems to change rapidly and dramatically, but other scientists doubt the theory. Meanwhile, there is widespread concern about humanity’s ability to sustain itself in a world of diminishing biodiversity if the global population reach - es 9.5 billion by 2050, as is projected. While many more areas are being pro - tected today than in the past — includ - ing the bio-rich Amazon rainforest — con - servation efforts are not keeping up with the loss of biodiversity. A keeper at the Singapore Zoo examines a majestic rare African white rhino on July 17, 2012. The huge creatures are on the verge of being threatened with extinction due to poaching. Their horns are used for medicinal purposes in Asia and for ornamental dagger handles in the Middle East. PUBLISHED BY CQ PRESS, AN IMPRINT OF SAGE PUBLICATIONS, INC. WWW.CQPRESS.COM VANISHING BIODIVERSITY THE ISSUES Tropical Species Are 501 Declining • Is Earth at a global Populations of some wild Nov. 6, 2012 499 biodiversity-loss tipping species have declined more Volume 6, Number 21 point? than 60 percent. MANAGING EDITOR: Kathy Koch • Does monoculture agri - [email protected] culture threaten biodiversity? 502 Inside the ‘Doomsday Vault,’ • Does biodiversity loss Hope for Survival CONTRIBUTING EDITORS: Thomas J. Billitteri But some conservationists [email protected]; Thomas J. Colin threaten human civilization? ask: Is it enough? [email protected] BACKGROUND CONTRIBUTING WRITERS: Brian Beary, 504 One-Third of Species Are Roland Flamini, Sarah Glazer, Reed Karaim, Threatened Rob ert Kiener, Jina Moore, Jennifer Weeks Extinction Epochs Two percent of the species 509 Five great extinction already were extinct in 2009. SENIOR PROJECT EDITOR: Olu B. Davis events have occurred dur - ASSISTANT EDITOR: Darrell Dela Rosa ing Earth’s history. Chronology 507 Key events since 1901. FACT CHECKER: Michelle Harris Humans and Extinction 511 Early activities such as Mystery of the 508 Disappearing Bees hunting, farming and do - New studies point to a mesticating animals began widely used pesticide as the reducing biodiversity. cause of the worldwide decline. An Imprint of SAGE Publications, Inc. VICE PRESIDENT AND EDITORIAL DIRECTOR, CURRENT SITUATION At Issue HIGHER EDUCATION GROUP: 513 Is biodiversity loss reaching a Michele Sordi Threats and Progress critical stage? 512 Biodiversity loss continues, DIRECTOR, ONLINE PUBLISHING: even as governments take 520 Voices from Abroad Todd Baldwin measures to mitigate it. Headlines and editorials from around the world. Copyright © 2012 CQ Press, an Imprint of SAGE Publications, Inc. SAGE reserves all copyright OUTLOOK and other rights herein, unless pre vi ous ly spec - FOR FURTHER RESEARCH i fied in writing. No part of this publication may Coming Changes be reproduced electronically or otherwise, 515 For More Information without prior written permission. Un au tho rized Declining biodiversity will 517 Organizations to contact. re pro duc tion or trans mis sion of SAGE copy right - trigger huge environmental ed material is a violation of federal law car ry ing changes. Bibliography civil fines of up to $100,000. 518 Selected sources used. CQ Press is a registered trademark of Con - SIDEBARS AND GRAPHICS 519 The Next Step gressional Quarterly Inc. Additional articles. CQ Global Researcher is printed on acid-free paper. Most Threatened Species Pub lished twice monthly, except: (Jan. wk. 5) (May 500 Citing CQ Global Researcher Are in Asia, Western 519 wk. 5) (July wk. 5) (Oct. wk. 5). Published by Hemisphere Sample bibliography formats. SAGE Publications, Inc., 2455 Teller Rd., Thousand Ecuador has the most Oaks, CA 91320. Annual full-service subscriptions threatened species. start at $575. For pricing, call 1-800-834-9020. To purchase a CQ Researcher report in print or elec - tronic format (PDF), visit www.cqpress.com or call 866-427-7737. Single reports start at $15. Bulk pur - chase discounts and electronic-rights licensing are also available. Periodicals postage paid at Thou - sand Oaks, California, and at additional mailing offices. POST MAST ER: Send ad dress chang es to CQ Re search er , 2300 N St., N.W., Suite 800, Wash - ing ton, DC 20037. Cover: AFP/Getty Images/Roslan Rahman 498 CQ Global Researcher Vanishing Biodiversity BY REED KARAIM raises the possibility the plan - THE ISSUES et is nearing a “state shift,” or tipping point, in which the s scientists study the global ecosystem changes dra - web of life that makes matically. 5 A up Earth’s shrinking Other recent research has biodiversity, they continue to taken a closer look at hu - find unexpected connections. manity’s dependence on Consider the sea otter and healthy ecosystems for every - climate change. thing from the food we eat A small marine mammal to the water we drink and that lives in the frigid north - the clean air we breathe. 6 ern Pacific coastal waters, the “When we look at the big - sea otter has the densest fur ger picture, we discover we in the animal kingdom, with depend on a whole lot of up to a million hairs per species,” says Michel Loreau, square inch. 1 Sea otter fur director of the Centre for Bio - was so prized they were hunt - diversity Theory and Model - ed to the brink of extinction n ling in Moulis, France. a m in the early 1900s, when only a Conservationists have Z 2 about 2,000 remained. z made progress in some areas, u r Thanks to changing fashions i including the Amazon, where n u and conservation efforts, the M forest clearing has slowed. / s sea otter population has re - e “There’s a lot more good news g a covered to number in the m than people think,” says Stu - I y t tens of thousands, although t art Pimm, a conservation bi - e G it’s still far below what it / ologist with Duke University P once was. F in Durham, N.C., and the A Once their fur was no Commuters use a boat bridge in Dhaka, the capital of University of Pretoria in South longer cherished, sea otters Bangladesh, where the Buriganga River is clogged by invasive Africa. “Globally, for example, were seen merely as cute, play - water hyacinths. The dense foliage of the rapidly growing plant we’ve reduced the rate of bird covers the river’s surface, blocking light, killing native species and ful creatures — until recently. destroying the fragile food web. Non-native species extinctions to about a quarter A new study indicates that like the hyacinth are disrupting ecosystems and of what it would have been the sea otter plays a mea - threatening plants and animals around the world. if we hadn’t bothered.” surable role in fighting Yet, overall, the Earth is glob al warming. Researchers still losing species. From at the University of California, Santa — but this indicates that animals might large animals such as tigers and rhi - Cruz, found that the otters helped to have a strong impact on the carbon cycle. noceroses to insects and plant vari - protect Pacific seaweed forests by eat - There might be win-win conservation- eties, populations are declining, and ing kelp-loving sea urchins. 3 Kelp climate change scenarios,” says assistant many species are believed to be going consumes carbon dioxide (CO 2), a professor of environmental studies Chris extinct. Estimates have ranged as high principal contributor to global warm - Wilmers, the study’s lead author. as 150 to 200 species a day, although ing. By eating the sea urchins, the The sea otter study is one of sev - some researchers believe the number otters enable kelp forests to process eral recent reports that are deepening could be significantly lower. 7 Part of up to an additional 9.6 million tons scientific understanding of the impor - the problem: No one knows how many of carbon dioxide a year, the re - tance of biodiversity and how humans species exist on Earth; estimates range searchers found. 4 affect it. For years, conservation biol - from 2 million to 100 million. 8 “From the perspective of trying to ogists and other scientists have re - Scientists, however, can use the mitigate climate change, all the focus ported that the Earth is losing plant fossil record to compare the normal has been on [CO 2-consuming] plants and animal species at an alarming rate. “background” rate of extinctions with — managing forests, that sort of thing One new study, published in Nature , the rate of recorded extinctions in www.globalresearcher.com Nov. 6, 2012 499 VANISHING BIODIVERSITY Most Threatened Species Are in Asia, Western Hemisphere More than 900 species have gone extinct worldwide in the last 500 years, and more than 10,000 are in danger of extinction, according to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. Ecuador, which is rapidly losing its biodiversity-rich rainforests to oil exploration, logging and road building, has the world’s largest number of species threatened by extinction.
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