‘You too may become extinct’

By: Mahmoud Al-Dwairi on November 5th, 2009

Biodiversity – the wealth of living species on the Earth – has declined dramatically in the last few years, because of the accelerating rate of development. The loss is considered by scientists a way to measure the worsening health of the environment.

The World Conservation Union’s  (IUCN) Red List of threatened species has shown for years that we are losing many creatures. The latest update shows that 17,291 species out of a total of 47,677 which were assessed are threatened with extinction.

The results confirm that 21% of all known mammals, 30% of amphibians, 12% of birds and 32% of gymnosperms (a group of plants) are threatened with extinction in the wild, bringing into sharp focus the continuing decline of Earth’s biodiversity and humanity’s impacts on the environment.

The Red List shows clear evidence that biodiversity loss is increasing despite all the individual and corporate attempts to sustain it. This means the problem cannot be solved by environmentalists alone, but needs efforts from everyone.

The negative impacts of irresponsible action  reach to regions which appear  far away from human influence, such as deserts and arid lands. These contain a high number of rare species; the main threat for them is habitat degradation. The dama gazelle, for example, which lives in the Sahara desert, has suffered an 80% crash in numbers over the past 10 years.

Polar bears appear to be one of the animals most affected by global warming in the Arctic, and fresh water species suffered some of the most dramatic declines: 56% of 252 kinds of fish around the Mediterranean are threatened with extinction.

Larger fresh water species at risk include one of Africa’s best known aquatic icons, the hippopotamus, listed as threatened for the first time because of a catastrophic decline in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The pressures from urbanization, mass tourism and intensive agriculture have pushed more and more native species in the Mediterranean region, one of the world’s 34 biodiversity hotspots with nearly 25,000 species of plant, towards extinction.

The structure of world ecosystems is changing rapidly and Earth’s surface is being transformed, while forests continue to deteriorate.  All of these are alerts to wake up us humans. Instead of arguing, it’s time to make the right deal for climate action, unless we too want to be on the Red List.