A team of 23 scientists from nine countries has carried out a new analysis of several global studies on future species changes and extinctions. And has come to the conclusion thata prolonged and inevitable loss of biodiversity is anticipated throughout the 21st century, as published by the magazineScience in your editionon line.However, it offers new hope:the phenomenon could be slowed down if appropriate policies are adopted. The researchers, led by Henrique Miguel Pereira and Paul Leadley, with the collaboration of the organization DIVERSITAS, the World Conservation Monitoring Center (UNEP-WCMC) and the secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD, in its acronym in English). ), compared the results of five recent global environmental assessments and hundreds of scientific articles published in scientific journals. The analysis warns that the goal of halting biodiversity loss by 2020 “sounds good, but unfortunately it is not realistic.”
“If events continue as they have been today, there is no doubt that we will see each otherdoomed to catastrophic loss of biodiversity. Even the most optimistic scenarios for this century predict, in any case, that extinctions and the decline of the populations of many species will occur “, explains Paul Leadley, one of the main authors and researcher at the University Paris-Sud (France). .
According to scientists, it is necessary for society to adopt radical changes to avoid the high risk of future extinctions and for the populations of many species to increase their decline. And not only that. ? Projections indicate that the risk of future extinctions is high, but the biodiversity crisis does not end with extinctions. A large part of the changes that will affect biodiversity in the 21st century will be produced by major alterations in the abundance of species and in the composition of communities ?, explains Henrique Miguel Pereira, one of the main authors and researcher at the University of Lisbon ( Portugal).
Taking measurements
For the team of scientists, however, there is still room for hope. Recent scenarios indicate thatcurbing and slowing down climate change and deforestation could reduce the impoverishment of biodiversity. However, the action must be quick. The study indicates that the opportunity to take action is ending and the different measures that are adopted now could lead to an increase in global forest cover of 15% or a decline in it, greater than 10% by the year 2030.
Regarding thevertebrates, the analysis of the data of the 25,000 species included in the Red list of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) reveals thatone in five species of vertebrates is endangered. That 52 species of mammals, animals and amphibians are moving in category to get closer and closer to extinction. And that when a species begins to decline, in 16% of cases nothing can be done to prevent it from becoming extinct. Species in the tropics, especially those that live in Southeast Asia, are the most threatened.
