Humans spur worst extinctions since dinosaurs

Posted by Chris Schults (Guest Contributor) at 7:46 AM on 21 Mar 2006

Read more about: biodiversity | extinction | habitat loss

Humans are responsible for the worst spate of extinctions since the dinosaurs and must make unprecedented extra efforts to reach a goal of slowing losses by 2010, a U.N. report said on Monday.

Habitats ranging from coral reefs to tropical rainforests face mounting threats, the Secretariat of the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity said in the report, issued at the start of a March 20-31 U.N. meeting in Curitiba, Brazil.

"In effect, we are currently responsible for the sixth major extinction event in the history of earth, and the greatest since the dinosaurs disappeared, 65 million years ago," said the 92-page Global Biodiversity Outlook 2 report.

Keep reading (if you can). Or go straight to the report.

For story: Humans spur worst extinctions since dinosaurs
2 Comments | Post a Comment

Is counting all species important for action?

Apparently it is, according to a related article that appeared a couple of days ago in CNN.com, probably AP rather than Reuters. The point is, it would seem, that the "international community," i.e. governments (how ill-served we are by our governments!), would like to have a baseline before they start to do anything.

And of course the biologists are in agreement that literally counting all species is an impossible task, and even estimating the number of all species is extremely difficult and full of controversy.

It seems to this lay observer that we have a good enough idea which individual species are clearly endangered, and which ecosystems are clearly endangered, and which ecosystems are probably endangered even if we do not know about them everything we would like to know. Certainly it is justified to take action right now on those three fronts.

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

by caniscandida at 3:29 PM on 21 Mar 2006

Oceans and extinction

As noted by the UN report, much of the extinction is happening in the seas. As health-conscious Americans continue to look to fish as part of their diet, and as our population reaches 300 million and more, a new and radical fisheries policy is critical not just for ocean habitat, but for anyone who hopes to continue eating fish as we do now. Legislation on fishery management is coming up and Greenpeace is working with Representatives to make it comprehensive and attentive of ecosystem management rather than industry pocketbook management. Click here to take action and write to your Rep.: http://members.greenpeace.org/action/start.php?action_id=88

Amy Gregory GreenpeaceUSA

by Amy Gregory at 9:16 AM on 22 Mar 2006

ADVERTISING POLICY

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