Time to change the strategy in the battle for biodiversity

I think there are quite a few opportunities for us to say how can we save species and one them is to move towards looking at the habitats and ecosystems the species inhabit and to make those safer.

The Chief Executive of the James Hutton Institute, Professor Iain Gordon, has called for greater support and investment in inter-disciplinary science to tackle rising extinction rates in the plant and animal world.

Speaking at the Planet Under Pressure conference, a major international gathering in London focusing on solutions to global sustainability, he said the world was facing unprecedented change in structure and function of natural ecosystems.

Speaking in a session with other senior scientists from around the world, he said humans had increased the species extinction rate by as much as 1,000 times over the established background rates typical over the planet’s history.

Between 10 and 30% of mammal, bird, and amphibian species are currently threatened with extinction. Professor Gordon said the global view of how species were faring was based on reliable data from International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

His fellow session convenors were Anne Larigauderie, DIVERSITAS, Mark Lonsdale, CSIRO Australia/ DIVERSITAS, Simon Stuart, (IUCN) and Mark Stanley Price, IUCN Species Survival Commission.

Professor Gordon said: “There are three big pressures on biodiversity:

• habitat loss
• over exploitation of species (harvesting of ivory, rhino horn etc.)
• pollution.

“We are losing about 40% of the forests, 40% of grasslands and 50% of the wetlands have disappeared over the past 100 years or so.

“I believe we need a change of approach towards biodiversity loss. Too often we have said there are problems, that we are losing species and there’s nothing we can do. Actually, I think there are quite a few opportunities for us to say how can we save species and one them is to move towards looking at the habitats and ecosystems the species inhabit and to make those safer, working with the people that depend on the land. That process could include changes to farm subsidy systems, rural development programmes and tax incentives: so people would have a real interest in protecting endangered species.

“To deliver these changes will require decisive, joined-up thinking and it will have to be backed up by inter-disciplinary science to address these global challenges and inform decision making on managing our ecosystems.”