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  WWF 2 May 06
Biodiversity loss on the increase

PlanetArk 2 May 06
Polar Bears, Hippos Added to Threatened Species
 Story by Laura MacInnis

BBC Online 1 May 06
More species slide to extinction

The polar bear and hippopotamus are for the first time listed as species threatened with extinction by the world's biodiversity agency. They are included in the Red List of Threatened Species published by the World Conservation Union (IUCN) which names more than 16,000 at-risk species.

Many sharks, and freshwater fish in Europe and Africa, are newly included.

The IUCN says loss of biodiversity is increasing despite a global convention committing governments to stem it.

"The 2006 Red List shows a clear trend; biodiversity loss is increasing, not slowing down," said IUCN director-general Achim Steiner. "The implications of this trend for the productivity and resilience of ecosystems and the lives and livelihoods of billions of people who depend on them are far-reaching."

Overall, 16,119 species are included in this year's Red List, the most detailed and authoritative regular survey of the health of the plant and animal kingdoms. This represents more than a third of the total number of species surveyed; the list includes one in three amphibians, a quarter of coniferous trees, and one in four mammals.

Climate and hunting

Polar bears are particularly affected by loss of Arctic ice, which the IUCN attributes to climatic change. They need ice floes in order to hunt seals and other prey; without it, their food supply will decline. There is also evidence that the snow caves where they raise their young are melting earlier in the year. Polar bears are listed as Vulnerable to Extinction based on forecasts that their population will decline by 50% to 100% over the next 50 to 100 years.

In the tropics, the common hippopotamus has entered the Red List for the first time because the population in the Democratic Republic of Congo has declined spectacularly - by about 95% in a decade. The country's turbulent political situation has allowed unregulated hunting for meat and for the ivory in their teeth. "Regional conflicts and political instability in some African countries have created hardship for many of the region's inhabitants, and the impact on wildlife has been equally devastating," said IUCN chief scientist Jeffrey McNeely.

The common hipppo's decline in DRC has led to a Vulnerable listing even though other African populations including the largest, in Zambia, have held up well. The much less well known pygmy hippo has suffered from illegal logging and poor protection in several West African nations, leading to an upgrade in its status from Vulnerable to Endangered.

Marine misery

For the first time, this year's Red List includes a comprehensive region-by-region assessment on some groups of marine animals.

It shows that sharks and rays - members of the elasmobranch group of fish - are disappearing at an unprecedented rate across the globe. About 20% of the 547 species surveyed merit inclusion on the Red List. Some of these are fish which were once common on dinner plates in the UK and surrounding countries. The angel shark has been declared Extinct in the North Sea and Critically Endangered globally, while the common skate's status has also been upgraded to Critically Endangered.

The IUCN says that with fisheries extending into ever deeper zones of the ocean which are largely unregulated, populations of many species are set to decline sharply.

"The desperate situation of many sharks and rays is just the tip of the iceberg," said Craig Hilton-Taylor of the IUCN Red List Unit. "It is critical that urgent action to greatly improve management practices and implement conservation measures, such as agreed non-fishing areas, enforced mesh-size regulations and international catch limits is taken before it is too late."

In the Mediterranean, freshwater fish are faring even worse than their sea-going counterparts. Fifty-six percent of the 252 species endemic to the Mediterranean are threatened with extinction, the IUCN says; while in East Africa, a quarter of freshwater fish are at risk, which could carry important consequences for a human population highly dependent on fish for protein.

Limited success

It is not all doom and gloom.

The first optimistic note is that the overall number of species in this Red List is not significantly higher than in the last edition published in November 2004, which numbered 15,589 species on the brink.

The second is that the number of species believed to have gone extinct has also not changed significantly. The IUCN notes some marked conservation successes among the much more frequent stories of a slide towards oblivion.

The number of white-tailed eagles has soared in many European nations, and the bird's status has been downgraded from Near Threatened to Least Concern.

A recent decision by the Indian government to phase out a veterinary drug which was poisoning the common vulture, causing numbers to fall by 97%, is also cited as a simple measure which can bring great success.

But the overall message is that the number and range of species continues to decline, despite the UN Biodiversity Convention which commits governments to halt the trend by 2010.

PlanetArk 2 May 06
 Polar Bears, Hippos Added to Threatened Species
 Story by Laura MacInnis

GENEVA - Polar bears and hippos have joined the ranks of species threatened with extinction from climate change, unregulated hunting and other man-made dangers, a leading environmental agency said on Tuesday.

The World Conservation Union, or IUCN, said more than 16,000 species of animals and plants were at risk of disappearing, including one in four mammals and one in eight birds. It added 530 species to its "Red List" of endangered species since the last version released two years ago.

China, Brazil, Australia and Mexico are home to large numbers of threatened species, said the IUCN, whose members include 81 governments, more than 850 non-governmental groups and some 10,000 scientists from around the world.

It said countries worldwide needed to boost efforts to preserve biodiversity through reduced emissions, tighter fishing and hunting controls, and other measures.

Without a reversal of global warming trends, it predicted polar bear populations would drop more than 30 percent in the next 45 years as melted ice caps deprive the animals of their habitat. It classified the polar bear as a "vulnerable" species, one step down from "endangered" in its ranking of extinction risk. The polar bear was previously called a less-severe "conservation dependent" species.

The common hippo was also ranked as vulnerable, "primarily because of a catastrophic decline in the Democratic Republic of Congo," the IUCN said. Unrestricted hunting has caused a 95 percent decline in the central African country's hippo population since 1994, it said. The animal has never before been listed as threatened.

"CRITICALLY ENDANGERED"

Dama gazelles, once the most populous species of gazelle in the Sahara desert, are now "critically endangered" as a result of poaching, the report found.

More than half of the Mediterranean's 25 endemic species of freshwater fish were deemed to be at risk of extinction, along with one in four of East Africa's freshwater fish. In Malawi, where freshwater fish account for 70 percent of the animal protein that humans eat, the numbers of lake trout in Lake Malawi have halved in the past decade. "This could have major commercial and dietary consequences for the region," the IUCN said.

Ocean life was also cited as vulnerable. Of 547 species of sharks and rays assessed in the report, 20 percent were found to be at risk of extinction. Bottom-dwelling species also logged huge declines as fisheries have reached into ever-deeper waters. "Populations are destined to decline in the absence of international catch limits," the report said, adding regulations on mesh size and non-fishing areas could help restore stocks.

World Conservation Union Director General Achim Steiner said resurgent populations of white-tailed eagles in Europe showed that protective measures can protect vulnerable species.

"Conservation measures are making a difference," Steiner said. "We should not be passive bystanders in the unfolding tragedy of biodiversity loss and species extinction."

WWF 2 May 06
Biodiversity loss on the increase

Gland, Switzerland: The IUCN 2006 Red List highlights the serious situation the world's biodiversity is facing, and to some extent highlights what we already know. Threats to biodiversity are at an all time high, caused by detrimental human activities across the globe. The loss of species is an indication of the degraded state of our planet.

" This is not just about more and more individual species being threatened by extinction," said Dr Susan Lieberman, Director of WWF's Global Species Programme. "One by one, the building blocks of entire ecosystems are disappearing. It's like taking one brick after another from a wall, and eventually it will crumble. It is not an exaggeration to call today's analysis the reflection of a global conservation crisis."

The Red List is an effective guide that shows the net effects that continual habitat loss and degradation, over-exploitation, pollutants, climate change and the introduction of invasive plants and species into new areas, are having on our planet.

Climate change represents one of the most pervasive threats to our planet's biodiversity. A recently published study co-authored by WWF suggests that a quarter of the world's species will be on their way to extinction by 2050 as a result of global warming.

"It isn't just polar bears and penguins that we must worry about anymore," said Jennifer Morgan, Director of WWF's Global Climate Change Programme. "If the regions with the largest variety of animals and plants are no longer habitable due to global warming then we will destroy the last sanctuaries of many species and at the same time risk the future of millions of people."

Human reliance on wildlife for everyday needs cannot be overestimated. Healthy ecosystems with healthy species populations are critical to the livelihoods and very survival of local and indigenous communities around the world.

However, overexploitation of species for food, medicine, pets and other human uses, is a direct driver of species loss. These threats, in combination, are pushing the planet's resources to the limit.

For example, of the 547 species of shark, 20 per cent are now threatened with extinction. The ever-worsening status of so many species of sharks is symptomatic of the failure of fisheries management to sustainably manage these fisheries and to mitigate the impact of bycatch--the incidental catch of species--when sharks are not the direct target of a fishery.

WWF applauds IUCN for drawing attention to this situation and calls on governments and industry to take immediate action to address this problem. These include the development and adoption of methods to reduce the number of sharks caught in shark fisheries and as bycatch; the development of national plans of action for the conservation and management of sharks; and improvements to fisheries data collection, especially relating to Illegal,

Unregulated and Unreported (IUU) fishing, so that such worrying trends can be identified and addressed earlier. WWF works on threats to biodiversity through its programmes across the globe, and across a wide range of issues concentrating on the root causes of biodiversity loss.

These include working with people, local communities, governments, the private sector and academics to help deliver conservation outcomes for biodiversity.

It is crucial that governments, donors and our own communities mobilize now to address this crisis.

WWF believes the IUCN Red list is an important science-based conservation tool that should be used across the globe by communities, governments and international fora to drive funding and decision making.

Reversal of the negative trend is possible when political motivation is high and when local communities see the value and benefit from conserving species.

It is also important to remember that many of the world's threatened species are in the same places as some of the world's poorest people. In many cases, the root causes of species loss in these areas are either the same as, or closely related to, the causes of poverty.

The Red List is developed by a voluntary network of Species Specialist groups. WWF works in close cooperation with IUCN across the globe, through field interventions and by providing financial and technical support to the various Species Specialist groups of the IUCN Species Survival Commission.
links
Release of the 2006 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species reveals ongoing decline of the status of plants and animals 2 May 2006 on the IUCN website
Portraits in Red: Taking a closer look at the species under threat factsheets on the IUCN website
Related articles on Global issues: Biodiversity
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