The Earth is on the brink of a sixth great extinction after humanity has increased the natural rate of animal and plant species extinction by up to 1,000 times, says a new study.
In a study published in the journal Science, a team of researchers led by biologist Stuart Pimm examined the current state of knowledge about future rates of species extinction, and how well protected areas slow these rates.
The team found that the Earth’s natural extinction rate before humans was 0.1 per year per million species, ten times slower than previously thought, with the extinction rate today at at least 100 species per million per year.
Whilst the increased extinction rate is due to a variety of factors, the most prevalent are habitat loss caused by humans cutting down forests to build plantations and towns.
The introduction of non-native invasive species by humans to a region, over-hunting, and climate change are also major factors.
However, there is hope with modern technology helping improve the data and inform governments, as Pimm says:
“Online databases, smartphone apps, crowd-sourcing and new hardware devices are making it easier to collect data on species.
“When combined with data on land-use change and the species observations of millions of amateur citizen scientists, technology is increasingly allowing scientists and policymakers to more closely monitor the planet’s biodiversity and threats to it.”
He continued:
“One of the most exciting opportunities made possible by new technology is that we can now combine existing databases such as the Red List with constantly updated maps of where species live, maps of areas that are protected, maps of land-use change and human impacts, and the species observations of amateurs. Rather than relying primarily on local snapshots of biodiversity, we can fashion a more detailed global perspective of Earth’s biodiversity, the threats to it and how to manage them.”
Lucas N. Joppa, a conservation scientist at Microsoft’s Computational Science Laboratory in Cambridge, UK, commented:
“The gap between what we know and don’t know about Earth’s biodiversity is still tremendous — but technology is going to play a major role in closing it and helping us conserve biodiversity more intelligently and efficiently.
“These new approaches will also be vital in evaluating progress toward international conservation goals such as the recently established Aichi targets of the Convention on Biological Diversity.”
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