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A grim outlook

David Adam

U.N. warns of mass extinctions

LONDON: Humans have provoked the worst spate of extinctions since the dinosaurs were wiped out 65 million years ago, according to a United Nations report. It calls for worldwide efforts to address the slide.

The report paints a grim picture of life on earth, with declining numbers of plants, animals, insects and birds across the globe. It warns that the current extinction rate is up to 1,000 times faster than in the past. Some 844 animals and plants have disappeared in the last 500 years.

Released on Monday to mark the start of a U.N. environment programme meeting in Curitiba, Brazil, the report says: "In effect, we are currently responsible for the sixth major extinction event in the history of earth." A rising human population of 6.5 billions is wrecking the environment for thousands of other species. This is undermining efforts agreed at a 2002 U.N. summit in Johannesburg to slow the rate of decline by 2010. The global demand for biological resources now exceeds by 20 per cent the planet's capacity to renew them.

The report, `Global Biodiversity Outlook 2' from the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity, says: "The direct causes of biodiversity loss — habitat change, over-exploitation, the introduction of invasive alien species, nutrient loading and climate change — show no sign of abating." It is bleaker than a first U.N. review of the diversity of life, issued in 2001, and says the 2010 goal can only be attained with "unprecedented additional efforts." © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004

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