Alarming Losses of Animal Life

By FRANK LINGO

A new report details alarming losses of animal life around the world. Living Planet, The World Wildlife Fund for Nature’s magazine, in collaboration with the London Zoological Society, released its findings in an October, 2022 article.

The Living Planet Index measures changes to the world’s vertebrates on land, in oceans and in fresh water. The recurring Index was adopted by the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) over a decade ago as an indicator of progress toward its goals of protecting animal life.

The statistics vary widely according to what continent is counting them. Latin America and the Caribbean have had the most catastrophic loss - 94% of monitored species since 1970. Africa has lost 66% of animal life in this same half century. Worldwide, an estimated 200 species of frogs alone have gone extinct since the ‘70s. Of course, long before the studies started in 1970, all continents had major losses in biodiversity from human encroachment.

The Convention on Biological Diversity’s mission is to protect the world’s plants and animals. Almost every nation on Earth has signed on. Four members of the United Nations have not: Andorra, South Sudan, the Vatican and … wait for it – the United States.

This shameful situation isn’t new. The CBD got started at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio. So for three decades the US has failed to join almost every other nation in their efforts to protect nature. Blame the venerable US Senate, which has had control by both parties during this time.

Not that the CBD’s efforts have succeeded. At their conferences, they set lofty goals that everybody agrees to – and then they do next to nothing. In fact, backsliding is the norm for the entire world, as evidenced by the losses enumerated in this new report.

Biodiversity is defined simply as the variety of life on Earth. We humans chronically fail to respect its importance. Enlightened self-interest should inform us that we need nature to thrive so that we, too, can thrive. Everything we breathe, drink and eat originates in nature, even if it’s altered before we partake of it.

Apples are an example. About 30,000 varieties of apples originally occurred on Earth. Most have been pushed nearly out of existence by human horticulturalists to the point where only about 30 varieties are commonly available. That’s one-tenth of 1% of the apple species Mother Nature saw fit to bestow upon the world.

The same thing happened with hundreds of other plant species. A big problem with dwindling varieties within a species is that when a disease ravages the few remaining types, it can quickly wipe out the whole population due to the loss of natural resistance that was previously provided by diversity.

The report noted that about a million species around the world are in danger of extinction. The CBD estimates that about 150 species of plant, animal, fish or insect go extinct EVERY DAY! That’s about 1,000 times the non-human-caused extinction rate.

Over-fishing has pushed populations nearly to extinction, and so has global warming. Rising water temperatures can disrupt fish sustenance, causing them to die off.

The biggest cause of extinction is loss of habitat. We’re losing the equivalent of 27 football fields of rainforest every day. Cut down the forests and the animals will die. But at least we’ll have plenty of paper towels and cardboard boxes for Amazon.com to deliver. We just won’t have THE Amazon any more.

I’ll close with a quote from Carter Roberts, President of The World Wildlife Fund: “The world is waking up to the fact that our future depends on reversing the loss of nature just as much as it depends on addressing climate change. You can’t solve one without the other. This report underscores the urgent need to protect our natural world.”

Frank Lingo, based in Lawrence, Kansas, is a former columnist for the Kansas City Star and author of the novel “Earth Vote.” Email: lingofrank@gmail.com. See his website: Greenbeat.world

From The Progressive Populist, November 15, 2022

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