Scientists say billions required to meet conservation targets

 

 
The most threatened species tend to be relatively cheap to save because of small range sizes.
 

Reducing the risk of extinction for

threatened species and establishing protected areas for nature will cost the world over $76bn dollars annually.

Researchers say it is needed to meet globally agreed conservation targets by 2020.

The scientists say the daunting number is just a fifth of what the world spends on soft drinks annually.

And it amounts to just 1% of the value of ecosystems being lost every year, they report in the journal Science.

“Nature just doesn't do recessions, we're talking about the irreversible loss of unique species and millions of years of evolutionary history”

Donal McCarthy RSPB

Back in 2002, governments around the world agreed that they would achieve a significant reduction in biodiversity loss by 2010. But the deadline came and went and the rate of loss increased.

At a meeting of the Convention on Biological Diversity in Nagoya that year governments re-committed to a series of targets to be achieved by 2020.

Great apes, such as gorillas, chimps and bonobos, are

running out of places to live, say scientists. They have recorded a dramatic decline in the amount of habitat suitable for great apes, according to the first such survey across the African continent. Eastern gorillas, the largest living primate, have lost more than half their habitat since the early 1990s. Cross River gorillas, chimps and bonobos have also suffered significant losses, according to the study. Details are published in the journal Diversity and Distributions     . "Several studies either on a site or country level indicated already that African ape populations are under enormous pressure and in decline," said Hjalmar Kuehl, of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, who helped organise the research.

At the Planet Under Pressure conference in London, Diana Liverman and Will Steffen present something of a contrasting couple.

The two professors have been working together on a State of the Planet

report, which has involved trawling through numerous reports and scientific

papers. At the end of it all, the message of one appears somewhat optimistic,

the other fundamentally pessimistic.

They agree that changes to the world since about 1950 have been startling -

rapid spread of the human population, accelerating exploitation of forests and

marine resources, surging economic growth in successive waves across the world,

and so on.

This radical reshaping of the natural world by a single species is certainly

unprecedented in Earth history, which a few years back led to scientists Paul

Crutzen and Eugene Stoermer coining a special name for our epoch - the Anthropocene.

If you accept the premise that we have entered the Anthropocene, one of the

over-arching questions is "what happens now?"; another is "can we get out of

it?"

Prof Liverman, who studies social aspects of global change at the University

of Arizona, has the task of assessing the societal trends that either indicate

'Jacuzzi vents' model CO2 future

A UK scientist studying volcanic vents in the ocean says they hold a grave warning for future marine ecosystems.

These vents have naturally acidified waters that hint at how our seas might change if atmospheric carbon dioxide levels continue to rise.

They are conditions that would make it harder for corals and similar organisms to make the hard parts in their bodies.

Dr Jason Hall-Spencer's work suggests our oceans could lose perhaps 30% of their biodiversity this century.

The Plymouth University researcher has been presenting his latest findings to a major conference in Vancouver, Canada.

"I am investigating underwater volcanoes where carbon dioxide bubbles up like a Jacuzzi, acidifying large areas of the seabed, and we can see at these vents which types of organisms are able to thrive and which ones are most vulnerable," he told the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

Of the nearly forty feline, or cat, species, only one—the domestic cat—is believed to be secure. As undeveloped land becomes harder to find, large cats, such as lions, panthers, tigers, jaguars, and cheetahs, are left with less and less natural habitat in which to live.

Mountain Lions—America's Large Cat 

The mountain lion is a seven-foot-long cat that can weigh between 70 and 170 pounds. It was once found throughout North America from southern Argentina to northern British Columbia, making it one of the most widely distributed terrestrial species on the continent. It is also known as the panther, puma, or cougar, and preys on large animals, particularly deer. Mountain lions may also eat wild hogs, rabbits, and rodents. They require large home ranges for securing food—a single individual may have a home range spanning 85 square kilometers. By 1900 the species was nearly extinct due to habitat loss and hunting. Until the 1960s, many states offered monetary rewards for the killing of mountain lions. Mountain lions are now found primarily in mountainous, unpopulated areas.