ENV100

Lecture 25: The Biodiversity Crisis

TOPICS:
• mass extinctions
• current state of
biodiversity
• drivers of the
biodiversity crisis
• biodiversity & poverty
• biodiversity targets
• hope for the future?
Is extinction a “dirty word?”
5 major mass extinction events
Pleistocene megafauna
North America: vertebrate diversity peaked ~ 50 — 20 kYa

15 — 9 kYa: massive extinction of megafauna

 “overkill hypothesis”
• humans arrive N. Am ~14,000 years ago
• spread to S. America in 1,000 years
• hunting wipes out megafauna?

mammoth bone
with butchering
marks
in N.Z.: moa: flightless bird

humans arrived 1280 CE

moas gone by 1750 CE

~ 800 known human – caused extinctions since 1500 CE…

Steller’s dodo passenger

sea cow (~1680) pigeon
(1768) (1914)
“The Great Acceleration”
current extinction
rates:

100 – 1,000 X
background

tropics ~10,000 X

we are in the “Great

Acceleration”
IUCN Red List of Threatened Species
 The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species

• established in 1964: database of the global conservation status

of animal, fungi, and plant species
• 9 categories based on risk of global extinction: Not Evaluated,
Data Deficient, Least Concern, Near Threatened, Vulnerable,
Endangered, Critically Endangered, Extinct in the Wild, and
Extinct
 extinction risk
assessments have been
completed for around
7% of the world's
described species
goodbye
the biggest drivers of
biodiversity decline are:

• overexploitation (harvesting
species from the wild at rates
that cannot be compensated
for by
reproduction/regrowth)

• agriculture (production of
food, fodder, fibre and fuel
crops; livestock farming;
aquaculture; cultivation of
trees)
Exploitation
e.g., trade in endangered species
loss of
biodiversity is
driving collapse
of fisheries

only ‘50 years left’

for fish stocks
Land use:
Habitat loss and
fragmentation
(esp agriculture)
Net change in local species richness caused by land use and
related pressures

T Newbold et al. Nature (2015)

• forests are home to 90% of terrestrial species
• 80% of world’s forests are degraded or destroyed
Invasive species
feral cats:

implicated in global
decline of songbirds, especially problematic in
ground nesting birds, Australia, Galápagos Islands
turtles, bats
 26 – fold increase in chemicals used 1,000’s
amount of agricultural
Pollution: pesticide use in last
of km away enter Arctic
food chains
50 years
 oiled pelicans from the
Deepwater Horizon spill
 • depauperate
communities are
Disease at high risk for
disease
Solving the Biodiversity Crisis
 biodiversity “hot spots”: areas of high density and great poverty
populations that are ill-equipped to bear the economic burden of conservation
who is responsible for
biodiversity loss?

• main driver is consumption and

demand from developed countries
• per capita use of resources is far
higher in North America, Europe
and Australia than it is in poor,
biodiversity-rich countries
• world’s richest 20% of people: 80-
90% of total consumption; poorest
20%: 1.3%
who is responsible for
biodiversity loss?

• conversion of natural habitat to

produce cheap tropical timber,
cattle-feed, and edible oils
• growing demand for soya, beef,
timber and palm oil is
accelerating the loss of tropical
forests
• little if any benefit accrues to
local poor in the process
the poorest are
forced to
prioritize short-
term survival
over longer-
term
sustainability

“tropical deforestation... does not lead to any sustainable human activity”

-- Paul Ehrlich
 biodiversity &
poverty

• US$126 billion of official aid spent

annually to alleviate global
poverty
• US$8 – 12 billion on addressing
biodiversity loss
• resources are insufficient to solve
these global challenges
• what if the solutions to these
challenges were mutually
reinforcing?
• “There is a huge amount of degraded land available for planting oil palms
in Sumatra and Borneo, but palm oil companies can make a quick profit
when they cut down rainforests and sell the timber, so the relentless
deforestation continues.”
• “The international community must demand that oil-palm plantations
are not developed in forested areas, and that our local retailers and
manufacturers only source the palm oil in their products from non-
destructive plantations.”
• REDD+ = reducing emissions from deforestation and forest
degradation
• conservation and enhancement of existing forest carbon stocks,
sustainable forest management & biodiversity protection
• Rewarding Upland
Poor for
Environmental
Services (RUPES)
• establishment of
conservation
agreements (CAs) &
payment for
environmental
services (PES)
schemes
• committed to FPIC
(free prior informed
consent)
“…ecosystems and the services they provide
are financially significant… to degrade and
damage them is tantamount to economic
suicide.” (UNEP 2005)
 What’s a boreal forest really
worth?

$93 billion annually

• stores 67 billion tonnes of carbon = 303 years of carbon

emissions
• “carbon bank account” = $3.1 trillion
protecting endangered ecosystems
protects endangered economies!
• between 2010 and 2019
protected areas increased
from 14.1% to 15.3% on land,
and from 2.9% to 7.5% in the
marine realm
• only 21.7% of species assessed
as threatened with extinction
on the IUCN Red List were
adequately represented within
protected areas in 2019 (up
from 18.9% in 2010)
• 1/3 of Key Biodiversity Areas
& > ½ of all ecosystems on land
and sea remained without
adequate protection in 2019
 there is hope!
• effective management & restoration of
habitats
• enforcement of agreements (e.g.
CITIES)
• creating incentives and sharing costs of
conservation
• limiting pollutants
• captive breeding; seed banks
• “reconciliation ecology”: promoting
biodiversity in human-dominated
ecosystems
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/11/brazil-amazon-deforestation-
soars-11-year-high-bolsonaro-191118140604466.html
Rapa Nui
(Easter Island)
• settled ~400 CE; peak
~1500 CE; sudden
collapse
• complete
deforestation of island
the lesson of Rapa Nui:
“Those who forget the past are
condemned to repeat it.”
- Santayana
Take-home message: • we are in the 6th mass
extinction; caused by human
activity
• biodiversity is in crisis
• exploitation, agriculture, habitat
loss, invasive species, pollution
& disease are the major drivers
of biodiversity loss
Take-home message: • biodiversity is critical to our
survival
• countries with biodiversity
hotpots need commitment from
the global community to
preserve them
• there is hope, but we need
political will to turn things
around
next time:
Chapter 10: Forests & Forest Resources