More than one million of the estimated eight million plant and animal species on earth are at a risk of vanishing- many of them within decades -because of lopsided human activities, a UN report has warned.
Painting a grim picture, the UN global assessment report prepared by over 100 scientists from the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) said that the biomass of wild mammals has fallen by 82 per cent, natural ecosystems have lost about half their area and a million species are at risk of extinction - all largely as a result of human actions.
Compiled over three years by more than 450 scientists and diplomats, the report ), the summary of which was approved at the 7th session of the IPBES Plenary, meeting last week (29 April - 4 May) in Paris said that the average abundance of native species in most major land-based habitats has fallen by at least 20 per cent, mostly since 1900.
“More than 40 per cent of amphibian species, almost 33 per cent of reef-forming corals and more than a third of all marine mammals are threatened. At least 680 vertebrate species had been driven to extinction since the 16th century and more than 9 per cent of all domesticated breeds of mammals used for food and agriculture had become extinct by 2016, with at least 1,000 more breeds still threatened,” it said.
The overwhelming evidence of the IPBES Global Assessment, from a wide range of different fields of knowledge, presents an ominous picture, noted IPBES Chair, Sir Robert Watson. “The health of ecosystems on which we and all other species depend is deteriorating more rapidly than ever. We are eroding the very foundations of our economies, livelihoods, food security, health and quality of life worldwide,” he added.
Based on the systematic review of about 15,000 scientific and government sources, the Report also draws (for the first time ever at this scale) on indigenous and local knowledge, particularly addressing issues relevant to Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities.