Canada and the World
Current Events with a Canadian Perspective
Last update
19 November 2010
Measuring the Quality of Life
Scientists recommend setting up
a way of measuring the loss of biodiversity
Species extinction has been a serious issue for some time but there is no comprehensive way of measuring the overall losses or threats to fragile life forms.
Writing in the journal Science (April 9, 2010), a group of researchers says that the world needs some sort of “Barometer of Life,” that will help assess the situation.
Only a small Number of Species Catalogued
The International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN)
scientists say, “About 1.9 million species have been discovered and given scientific
names, though the actual number may exceed 10 million.” Include bacteria and other
microscopic life forms and the numbers sky-
According to Simon Stuart, Chair of IUCN’s Species Survival Commission, “Our knowledge about species and extinction rates remains very poor, and this has negative consequences for our environment and economy.
“By expanding the current IUCN Red List of Threatened Species to include up to approximately
160,000 well-
The Red List of Endangered Species
IUCN Red List has been assessing the vulnerability of some species for about 40 years. The list has six levels of danger: least concern, near threatened, vulnerable, endangered, critically endangered, extinct in the wild, and extinct. The group issues alerts about species’ status.
For example, on March 22, 2010, the IUCN wrote that, “Eighty five percent of sturgeon, one of the oldest families of fishes in existence, valued around the world for their precious roe [caviar, below], are at risk of extinction…”
At that time, sturgeon were the most threatened group of animals on the Red List. Having investigated 18 species of sturgeon in Europe the IUCN found them all to be threatened.
Conservation Measures
Alerting governments to vulnerable species allows them to take action to protect them.
However, there is no legal mechanism to force conservation measures on reluctant authorities, although the power of public persuasion can be effective in prompting action. There is evidence this has worked to some extent with regard to woodlands.
BBC News reported that Dr. Simon Stuart, who oversees the compilation of the Red List, “said it provided a good insight to the health of certain ecosystems, such as forests. ‘But it is very weak in its coverage of freshwater, marine and arid land species.’ ” This is why there is an effort being made to expand the list.
As an editorial in Nature pointed out (October 8, 2008), “…the lesson of ecology is that species don’t exist in isolation. They evolve and persist because of their relationships with all the other species around them. Conservationists these days usually talk about ecosystems as the units of interest, rather than species.”
Species Extinction is a Natural Process
Mark Newman of Cornell University estimates that 99.9 percent of the species that have ever lived on the planet Earth are now extinct.
He has written that, “Of all the species that have lived on the Earth since life first appeared here three billion years ago, only about one in a thousand is still living today. All the others, the vast majority, became extinct, typically within ten million years or so of their first appearance.”
So, the extinction of species is a natural event and is known as the background extinction rate. However, currently the species extinction rate is exceptional.
An article published by ScienceDaily (January 10, 2002) reports that the present
extinction rate is “as many as 100 to 1,000 times greater than normal, Dr. Donald
A. Levin said in the January-
The article notes that Dr. Levin expects “Half of all living bird and mammal species will be gone within 200 or 300 years,” the result of the fact that “a distinct species of plant or animal becomes extinct every 20 minutes.”
Sources
“The Barometer of Life.” S.N. Stuart et al, Science, April 9, 2010.
“The Red List still Matters.” Nature, October 9, 2008.
“Extinction Rate across the Globe Reaches Historical Proportions.” ScienceDaily, January 10, 2002.
“World Needs a Barometer of Life.” Mark Kinver, BBC News, April 9, 2010
Image credit: willgame
© Canada and the World, April 2010
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The year 2010 has been designated by the United Nations the International Year of Biodiversity
Most of the work in creating and maintaining the Red List is carried out by volunteers and it costs only $4 million a year to operate.
When Europeans arrived in North America, the passenger pigeon population was estimated to be between three and five billion. Their meat was a cheap food given to slaves, so hunting the bird on a massive scale wiped them out. The last known passenger pigeon died in 1914.
