The planet in danger: the possibility of a sixth mass extinction

The planet is in danger and not due to an external threat: the pressure of human activities puts us in the face of the possibility of a sixth mbad extinction. A few hours ago, drafts of a paper on which United Nations experts on biodiversity are working will be released and released next month: There are a million natural species at risk.

The main causes are due to the overexploitation of resources by the man: Overfishing, land use misuse and greenhouse gas generation. As if it was a perfect storm, these problems are added climate change.

Yesterday, there was a scientific study in Antarctica on the problems of Emperor penguin reproduce and could be considered a number of raccoons died from melting ice. Although this situation can not be directly linked to climate change, the experts have triggered alarms because this species, which depends so much on ice, can further aggravate its situation.

"Over the last 60 years, sea ice at the Halley Bay site has been stable and reliable. But in 2016, after an unusually stormy period, the pack ice broke in October, long before the emperor 's chicks fled. This pattern was repeated in 2017 and again in 2018 and resulted in the death of almost every chick on the site each season.", warn the experts.

"We have followed the population of this colony and other colonies in the region over the last decade using very high resolution satellite imagery. These images clearly show the catastrophic failure of breeding on this site over the past three years. Even taking into account levels of ecological uncertainty, published models suggest that the number of emperor penguins will drop sharply, losing between 50 and 70% of their number by the end of the century due to the state of the art. sea ​​ice change as a result of climate changesaid Peter Fretwell, author of the report.

But not only is this species in danger. Starting Monday, representatives of 130 member countries of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) will meet in Paris to review the results of a triennial scientific work report.

According to the latest synthesis project obtained by AFP filtration, "several independent tests indicate a rapid acceleration, imminent extinction levels of species, between tens and hundreds of times above the average of the last 10 million years"

Of the estimated 8 million species on the planet, among these 5.5 million species of insects,between half a million and one million species will be threatened with extinction, many of them over the next decades", according to the text, whose wording may change depending on the debates within the IPBES.

These projections correspond to the warnings of many scientists who believe that Earth has entered the sixth "mbad extinction", the first attributed to humans, and that at least 680 vertebrate species have already disappeared during the last 500 years.

Agriculture and fishing
The report is partially based on the badysis of highly studied species, particularly vertebrates, and warns that they weigh "uncertainties" on lesser known species, such as insects.

The disappearance of this biodiversity will not only affect nature. Food, energy, drugs are included: the benefits that men "derive from nature are essential to the existence and richness of human life on Earth and most of they are not totally replaceable, "according to the project. For example, more than 2 billion people depend on wood for energy, 4 billion use natural medicines and 75% of the world's crops require pollination by insects.

The use of land and oceans (agriculture, forestry, mining) and the direct exploitation of resources (fishing, hunting) are the main culprits of this brutal situation. And they are combined with climate change, pollution and invasive species, whose impact is "relatively less important today" but "accelerates".

The text also links biodiversity loss to climate change, as these two phenomena are partly accentuated by the same factors, such as the agricultural model in an increasingly populous world. "We must recognize that climate change and biodiversity loss are just as important, not only for the environment, but also for economic and development problems," said IPBES President Robert Watson, at the AFP news agency. a "transformation" of food and energy production.

"If we want a sustainable planet that benefits communities around the world, we must change course in the next decade, as is the climate," said Rebecca Shaw, Chief Scientist, WWF (World Wildlife Fund).

The report estimates, however, that three quarters of the land surface, 40% of the marine environment and half of the water sources are "seriously altered". And the most affected areas are those in which indigenous people, particularly those who depend on nature and the poor, live, who are already the most vulnerable to the effects of climate change.