The Guardian

September 18, 2020

Sir David Attenborough’s soothing, matter-of-fact narrations have brought the natural world to our living rooms for nearly seven decades and counting. From Australia’s Great Barrier Reef to the jungles of central Africa, the 94-year-old broadcaster has dazzled and delighted millions with tales of life on Earth – mostly pristine and untouched, according to the images on our screens. But this autumn Attenborough has returned with a different message: nature is collapsing around us.

“We are facing a crisis. One that has consequences for us all. It threatens our ability to feed ourselves, to control our climate. It even puts us at greater risk of pandemic diseases such as Covid-19,” he warned in Extinction: The Facts on BBC One primetime, receiving five-star reviews.

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The Guardian

September 9, 2020
Wildlife populations are in freefall around the world, driven by human overconsumption, population growth and intensive agriculture, according to a major new assessment of the abundance of life on Earth.

On average, global populations of mammals, birds, fish, amphibians and reptiles plunged by 68% between 1970 and 2016, according to the WWF and Zoological Society of London (ZSL)’s biennial Living Planet Report 2020. Two years ago, the figure stood at 60%.

The research is one of the most comprehensive assessments of global biodiversity available and was complied by 134 experts from around the world. It found that from the rainforests of central America to the Pacific Ocean, nature is being exploited and destroyed by humans on a scale never previously recorded.

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Common Dreams

July 9, 2020
The U.S.-based Center for Biological Diversity warned Thursday of the "urgent action needed to save life on Earth" in response to a new global assessment revealing that nearly 27% of over 120,000 analyzed plant and animal species are now threatened with extinction.

"This assessment shows that one in four mammals are facing extinction, and although we don't prefer to think of ourselves as animals, we humans are mammals," Tierra Curry, a senior scientist at CBD, said in a statement. "We have to take bold and rapid action to reduce the huge damage we're doing to the planet if we're going to save whales, frogs, lemurs, and ultimately ourselves."

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National Geographic

April 10, 2020
[…] As top predators, harpy eagles play a crucial ecological role, keeping populations of prey species in check; their presence in a forest is indicative of a healthy, functioning environment. No one knows how many remain in the wild, but scientists do know that they’re disappearing. The giant raptors once lived from southern Mexico to northern Argentina, but since the 19th century their range has declined by nearly half, leaving the Amazon with 93 percent of the species’ remaining occupied habitat. Deforestation—the primary threat to harpy eagles’ survival—shows no signs of slowing. Last year, the world watched as massive tracts of the Amazon went up in flames, and right now 45 acres of Brazilian Amazon are being razed every hour.

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Euronews

April 1, 2020

Scientists estimate that roughly one million land and marine species may become extinct in the foreseeable future. Many within decades.

What are the main reasons for the decline of underwater ecosystems?

Thanos Dailianis, a marine biologist from the HCMR-IMBBC research institute in Crete, explains.

“Marine ecosystems are threatened both locally and globally. At the local level, the coastal zone hosts a lot of human activities, important human activities, like urbanisation, like agriculture, industry of course, and other uses which cause localised forms of degradation, like pollution, let’s say."

"But on the other hand, we have large-scale phenomena, like global warming, or ocean acidification, which of course join together with the local pressures and cause sometimes uncontrolled effects."

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Thomas Reuters Foundation News

March 6, 2020
In Europe, almost a quarter of wild species are at risk of dying out and many ecosystems are too degraded to sustain their social and economic benefits

Like a pandemic, the loss of plant and animal species is almost impossible to contain. But we already have all the information and evidence we need to stop it.

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China Dialogue

March 3, 2020
A new global deal for nature will need strong implementation and finance, but discussions on these issues at the latest negotiations under the Convention on Biological Diversity were lacking.

The clock is ticking. With just eight months to draw up a new deal for nature to prevent dire predictions of the extinction of one million species becoming reality, scientists and conservation groups are closely following progress of talks under the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).

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Phys.org

March 3, 2020
A study published Tuesday in Scientific Reports shows that stony corals, which provide food and shelter for almost a quarter of all ocean species, are preparing for a major extinction event.

The research team—which includes scientists from The Graduate Center, CUNY; Baruch College; Scripps Institution of Oceanography; University of Haifa; University of Leeds; and GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research—found that corals are currently exhibiting a suite of dynamic survival responses that correspond with their last major extinction 66 million years ago. 

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Campaign for Nature

February 28, 2020
This week, delegates from more than 100 countries and territories gathered in Rome for the first round of negotiations on a Paris Agreement-style global treaty to address the extinction crisis threatening one million species worldwide and the ecosystems on which humanity relies to survive.

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Phys.org

February 26, 2020
Extinction risk could decrease by more than 50% if at least 30% of land were to be conserved across the tropics, a new study reveals.

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Climate News Network

February 25, 2020
Within 50 years, a third of all plant and animal species could be caught up in a mass extinction, as a consequence of climate change driven by ever-rising temperatures. What is new about this warning is the method, the precision, the timetable and the identification of a cause.

And – entirely felicitously – support for the prediction is backed by a series of separate studies of individual species survival in a world rapidly warming because of human commitment to fossil fuels.

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Inter Press Service

February 18, 2020
When UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres addressed the 193-member General Assembly last December, he focused on the smoldering climate crisis– pointing out that the last five years have been the hottest ever recorded.

Ice caps are melting, he said, In Greenland alone, 179 billion tonnes of ice melted in July. Permafrost in the Arctic is thawing 70 years ahead of projections. Antarctica is melting three times as fast as a decade ago.

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USA Today

February 15, 2020
One-third of all animal and plant species on the planet could face extinction by 2070 due to climate change, a new study warns.

Researchers studied recent extinctions from climate change to estimate how many species would be lost over the next 50 years.

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The Conversation

February 14, 2020
Species are being lost at about a thousand times the natural rate of extinction. This is faster than at any other period in human history. Ecosystems — the vital systems on which all life depends — are being degraded across the globe.

This crisis of biodiversity loss is finally getting some attention. But its connection to another loss – that of indigenous cultures – is rarely mentioned. From animals to insects and plants, biodiversity loss cannot be effectively addressed without tackling the rapid disappearance of indigenous cultures. The two are inextricably linked.

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Forbes

February 14, 2020
Global insect extinctions have been the subject of growing public concern for the past few decades. But until recently, most people were unaware that many insect populations could actually be in trouble, nor did most people consider the consequences of insect extinctions for human welfare.

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