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Facing Extinction: 9 Steps to Save Biodiversity

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Facing Extinction: 9 Steps to Save Biodiversity Feature Article Facing Extinction: 9 Steps to Save Biodiversity By Joe Roman, Paul R. Ehrlich, Robert M. Pringle, and John C. Avise Red-eyed tree frog. Jan Pietruszka/Sebastian Duda In Brief In 2008, the Royal Society for Human history has followed a pattern—which began in Africa but is now the Protection of Birds in the UK global in scope—of exploiting nature and depleting resources. As we have announced a final call to find the slender-billed curlew, a one-time expanded our influence over the world, we have also extinguished species resident of Europe, the Middle East, and populations at an alarming rate. Despite attempts to reduce biodiversity and North Africa, last seen in 1999. loss, the trend is likely to continue: nearly 20% of all humans—more than Meanwhile, scientists in Australia a billion—now live within biodiversity hotspots, and their growth rate is pronounced the white lemuroid faster than the population at large. This article presents nine steps to reduce possum extinct; a native of mountain biodiversity loss, with a goal of categorizing human-caused extinctions as forests in Queensland, the possum wrongs, such as the slave trade and child labor, that are unacceptable to was the first mammalian extinction society. These steps include developing a system of parks that highlight blamed exclusively on global warming. the planet’s biological legacy, much as historical landmarks celebrate Two critically endangered frog human history. Legal prohibitions that are fairly and capably enforced species were declared extinct, despite will also be essential in protecting rare and declining species. Biodiversity their protection by a Costa Rican endowments—from national governments, nongovernmental organizations, national park. More than 140 species and private enterprises—can help support parks and native species in of mammals, 24 birds, 6 reptiles, and 5 amphibians deteriorated in perpetuity. Like a good sports team, conservationists need to defend extant conservation status, moving from lower wilderness areas, but they also need to play offense by restoring ecosystems, to higher risk categories of concern reclaiming keystone and umbrella species, and making human landscapes on the IUCN Red List of Threatened more hospitable to biodiversity. In the long run, the most effective forms of Species, the global authority on the conservation will be those that engage local stakeholders; the cultivation conservation status of the world’s of sustainable ecosystems and their services must be promoted along with animals and plants.1 Only 37 mammals conservation of endangered species and populations. The emerging field of improved during this period, along ecological economics can unite these goals by revealing the connections with two birds and one amphibian. between human well-being and conservation. Unfortunately, the year 2008 was not exceptional in these respects. 50 | Solutions | January-February 2010 | www.thesolutionsjournal.org The biodiversity crisis is by now as we lose our natural capital--the long lags in the evolution of new well known as it is tragic. The species ecological goods and services that organisms following major extinction extinction rate is of great concern. At enrich and sustain our lives. That events, largely because diversity least 76 mammal species are known deforestation and overgrazing can begets diversity. Extinction chips to have gone extinct since 1500, with lead to erosion and desertification away at the genetic and ecological several others on the verge.2 The baiji, is as obvious as the Sahel, but other engines of speciation. With fewer a freshwater dolphin of the Yangtze, connections—such as the rise of genetic lineages, there is a reduction will almost certainly join the list soon. malaria and hemorrhagic fevers in in the raw material of evolution: The Scimitar-horned oryx and Pere disturbed lands—are becoming more variation in DNA. A reduction in David’s deer now probably exist only apparent as our ecological footprints ecosystems and unique niches in captivity. Marine mammals are in and understanding of diseases expand. means fewer opportunities for new severe danger, especially in northern There is a growing recognition organisms to evolve. The drop in oceans. Things are even worse for the number of species, genera, and other, less celebrated, taxa. More than families on the planet is likely to 70% of North America’s freshwater Key Concepts be a long-lasting legacy of human mussel species are on the edge of activities. We will be poorer without a 3 extinction. Since the Polynesians first ∑ Extinction is likely to be one of our rich store of biodiversity—in spirit, in arrived on Hawaii 1,600 years ago, longest-lasting legacies. health, and even in our pocketbooks. more than 70% of the islands’ native Here are nine tactics that could help birds have disappeared.4 Since 1850, ∑ To address this crisis, we will need moderate human-caused extinctions. the extinction rate for the world’s landscape-level management of wil- Most of these suggestions have been derness and human-impacted areas, birds has been about 100 times higher community involvement, legislation, made before, repeatedly, but they than the background rate in the fossil economic incentives, bioliteracy, warrant our continued and ever- record. More than 10% of all bird unified conservation science, and at- more-urgent attention. tention to the prime drivers of extinc- species remain threatened. Seabirds tion: growth of the human population have been in special jeopardy—rats and its aggregate consumption. Landscape took out many island colonies, and 1. Biodiversity Parks about 130 of the 450 remaining species ∑ The new field of ecological eco- Many countries have national parks are threatened with extinction— nomics, which synthesizes human that feature special landscapes and activities and natural processes, can but forest birds aren’t faring much quantify the costs and benefits of geological formations: the volcanic better. If deforestation continues at biodiversity protection. caldera of Yellowstone, the Grand the present pace, so many birds may Canyon, Mount Kilimanjaro. In disappear that their extinction rate ∑ We need a social transformation, addition to these traditional and will increase by more than an order of through education and ecological essential parks, there is a need to literacy, to make human-caused 5 magnitude by the end of the century. extinction a thing of the past, like the protect a carefully designed network The problem is much bigger slave trade, apartheid, and the Iron of reserves on each continent than species loss. The diversity of life Curtain. and in every ocean. This global spans many levels, from strands of series, or archipelago, of biological DNA within an individual to entire refuges—biodiversity parks—will ecosystems comprising billions of that our natural heritage is at risk, preserve key features of the Earth’s organisms and thousands of species. irreplaceable, and central to our well- biological legacy inherited from the Extinction occurs adaptation by being. evolutionary past into the future. adaptation, population by population, There are potential remedies Such parks, in effect, would celebrate habitat by habitat. The disappearance for these problems, but they will and honor the evolutionary heritage of a population is often a prelude take effort and determination. The reflected in biological diversity, to species extinction,6 but species financial crisis made front-page just as traditional national parks can lose their ecological relevance news every day in early 2009. The and monuments preserve special long before they go extinct, as their global extinction crisis barely was geological features or honor important numbers dwindle and they no longer mentioned. Yet economic recessions historical events in human affairs. remain key players in the system. are a blip in history, whereas the Rather than merely constructing Many extant species are now absent effects of runaway extinction museums that memorialize biocide, from more than half of their historic will linger for millions of years. biodiversity parks would offer explicit ranges. As organisms disappear, Paleontologists have identified protection for endangered species and www.thesolutionsjournal.org | January-February 2010 | Solutions | 51 evolutionarily distinctive ecosystems. natural services such as recreational back its original terrain.10 Restoration The task is not as insurmountable opportunities and water purification.9 relying on successional recovery is not as it might appear. By preserving always so predictable, however. The and endowing just 25 biodiversity 2. Ecologically Reclaimed and reintroduction of fire to sand barren hotspots (less than two percent of Restored Habitats prairies that had been overgrown with the earth’s land area) we could help Humans need to play conservation willow was not enough to restore protect 44% of vascular plant species offense as well as defense. Beyond the prairie. The woody vegetation and 35% of all species of mammals, the immediate concern with the loss was resistant to the fire regime.11 For birds, reptiles and amphibians for $500 of a particular population, species, that reason, restoration ecologists are million a year7—less than 0.1% of the or ecosystem, a focus on long-term often needed to ensure the recovery of funds allocated to the United States’ recovery and biological revival is degraded lands.12 Thousands of species Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) also essential. Scientific
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