14 DAY TRIAL // According to a new major scientific review, published in the latest issue of the highly-regarded publication Science, governments will fail to meet their pledges for curbing biodiversity and nature loss by 2010. The goals, which were agreed upon willingly in international conferences, appear as distant now as they have always been, the reports shows, highlighting the fact that the number of declining species is still steady, increasing even, while ecosystems still degrade at an alarming rate.
Additionally, the pressure that human activities place on natural habitats continues to erode these areas, rendering them unable to support traditional animal and plant populations. The researchers who conducted the new study say that the implementation of the international goals has been troublesome at best. The decision to stem biodiversity loss, and to protect nature more closely, was taken in 2002, and the initiative was supposed to last until 2010. However, the overall results are disappointing, and make very little difference for plant and animal species worldwide.
“Our analysis shows that governments have failed to deliver on the commitments they made in 2002. Biodiversity is still being lost as fast as ever, and we have made little headway in reducing the pressures on species, habitats and ecosystems,” said UN Environment Program (UNEP) World Conservation Monitoring Center (WCMC) representative and lead researcher Stuart Butchart. He also works for BirdLife International, the BBC News reports.
“Since 1970, we have reduced animal populations by 30 [percent], the area of mangroves and seagrasses by 20% and the coverage of living corals by 40%. These losses are clearly unsustainable,” added the Chief Scientist of the UNEP, Joseph Alcamo. He is the director of the Center for Environmental Systems Research, at the University of Kassel, in Germany. The scientist reveals that the new research accounted for more than 30 indicators that predict how ecosystems, species and habitat respond to human-generated pressure.
“Although nations have put in place some significant policies to slow biodiversity declines, these have been woefully inadequate, and the gap between the pressures on biodiversity and the responses is getting ever wider,” Dr Butchart concludes.