HUMANITY has pushed the pace of extinction to thousands of times faster than the natural
rate, the American Association for the Advancement of Science was told yesterday by one
of the world's most eminent biologists.
Using conservative estimates, "the number of species doomed each year is 27,000," said Prof
Edward Wilson, of Harvard University. "Each day it is 74 and each hour three."
He called for a rapid survey of the world's flora and fauna to identify the most valuable
habitats and those at most risk.
"As humanity struggles to accommodate the eight billion people due to populate Earth within
50 years, the natural world and the rest of life is being eroded away," said Prof Wilson.
However, he said it was "not too late to make a big difference".
Five per cent of the Earth's land surface is burned every year. The tropical forests, repositories of most of the species of organisms, are being reduced by about one per cent of area per year.
"They now occupy six per cent of the land surface," said Prof Wilson.
"Coral reefs, the biodiversity rich 'rain forests of the sea', are being destroyed at an accelerating rate.
"Most of the populations of organisms, species and races of species disappear before we can study them, in many cases before we can give them a scientific name," he said. "Each species is a masterpiece of evolution and irreplaceable."
Prof Wilson delivered a "melancholy roll call":
One fifth of all bird species in the last 2,000 years extinguished, with 11 per cent of the surviving 9,040 species endangered.
More than half of the 266 species of freshwater fishes of peninsular Malaysia have been eliminated.In the United States, at least 2.3 per cent of bird species, 2.2 per cent of amphibians, 1.2 per cent of freshwater fishes, 1.1 per cent of plant species, and 8.6 per cent of freshwater mussels have been eliminated.
The origin of 20,000 young loggerhead turtles caught in drift nets in the western Mediterranean has been identified using genetic tags, the conference was told by Dr Brian Bowen, of Florida University. About 60 per cent came from the west Atlantic and the rest from the Mediterranean.
