Species dying as fast as ever as 2010 conservation target passes

by Ben Webster

Life on Earth is being extinguished as fast as ever despite a commitment from world leaders that this year would bring a reduction in the rate of destruction, a UN study has found.

Mankind's ecological footprint has continued to grow rapidly since 2002 when 190 countries, including Britain, agreed that by 2010 they would have slowed the rate at which animals and plants were being driven to extinction.

Only token efforts have been made to preserve species by designating more national parks and sanctuaries, according to the study by the UN Environment Programme's World Conservation Monitoring Centre.

The number of animals has fallen by 31 per cent since 1970, living corals by 38 per cent and mangroves and sea grasses by 19 per cent.

The annual rates of loss have shown no improvement since 2002, according to the study of more than 40 international monitoring systems.

Several species have died out since the 2010 biodiversity target was agreed at the 2002 summit in Johannesburg. Within months, the last two wild Hawaiian crows disappeared, The last Polynesian tree snail died that year.

The only known St Helena olive tree died in December 2003 and the Kihansi spray toad died in the wild in Tanzania in 2005. The main causes of species loss were all linked to human activities, including habitat destruction, hunting, the introduction of alien predators, the spreading of disease and climate change.

The study also found a rapid increase in the number of endangered species. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) reported last November that 21 per cent of all known mammals, 30 per cent of amphibians, 12 per cent of birds and 70 per cent of plants were under threat. The IUCN calculated that the rate of species loss was up to 1,000 times greater than the natural background rate.Stuart Butchart, lead author of the UN study, published in Science, said: "Our synthesis provides overwhelming evidence that governments have failed to deliver on the commitments they made and the target has not been met.

We found that the natural world is continuing to be destroyed as fast as ever.

"Governments have made some efforts, such as designating national parks, but the responses have been woefully inadequate and the gulf between the threats to biodiversity and government action is growing ever wider." He said that there had been some successes, notably the halving in the rate of destruction of the Amazon since 2004, equivalent to an area the size of East Anglia being saved each year.

Fight for survival

Extinct species and year of extinction

Kihansi spray toad, 2005

Poo-uli honeycreeper 2004

St. Helena olive 2003

Polynesian tree snail 2002

Hawaiian crow 2002

Pyrenian ibex, 2000

Species that declined badly last year

Rabb's fringe-limbed treefrog (Madagascar)

Eastern voalavo rodent Brown mudfish (New Zealand)

Success stories

Black stilt:

numbers up from 23 to 80

European bison:

now numbers 1,800

-Timesonline