We are now in another age of extinction (click to enlarge)

From an Article Translated by Johanna Thompson, German DW.com, June 21, 2022

Talks are currently underway in Kenya on a new international treaty to tackle dramatic species loss. What exactly is at stake? Here’s what you need to know.

Of the estimated 8 million animal, fungi and plant species on our planet, only a fraction have been scientifically documented, according to the international biodiversity council IPBES. Yet according to scientists, the world may lose nearly 1 million species by 2030, with one species already becoming extinct every 10 minutes. This is catastrophic, because a world that lacks diversity is a dangerous place for all species, including humans.

Later this year, at the second phase of the 15th UN Biodiversity Conference in Montreal, Canada almost 200 countries hope to agree on a new international framework for the protection of biodiversity. The agreement text is being prepared this week in Nairobi, Kenya.

Will the global community succeed in halting the extinction crisis? Here’s what you need to know. Two-thirds of all crops rely on natural pollinators such as insects!

What is biodiversity — and what does it mean to lose it?

A recent report from the Leibniz Research Network for Biodiversity stressed how the great variety of species on our planet’s is essential to just about every aspect of human life. “Whether it is the air we breathe, clean drinking water, food or clothing, fuel, building materials or medications — our life, our health, our nutrition and well-being all depend on the great diversity of resources that nature provides us with,” it stated.

More than two-thirds of all crops worldwide rely upon natural pollinators such as insects. Without them, our food supply is likely to become less secure. Yet a third of all insect species worldwide are already facing extinction.

Losing biodiversity could also spell disaster for the medical sector, as many pharmaceuticals — including close to 70% of cancer treatments — are derived from nature.

“The knowledge of 3.5 billion years of natural evolution is stored in biological diversity,” said Klement Tockner, director of Senckenberg Society for Nature Research, a group based in Frankfurt, Germany. “The progressive decline of our ecological capital poses the greatest threat to all of humanity — because once it’s lost, it’s lost forever.”

Reasons for insect loss, why are so many species going extinct?

The answer is human beings. As Earth Overshoot Day illustrates, every year we consume more of our planet’s resources than can be replenished.

Industrial agriculture, deforestation, overfishing, pollution, the spread of invasive species and soil sealing to make way for infrastructure are all contributing to an extinction rate that’s now 1,000 times higher than it would be without humans around.

Is losing a few species really such a big deal?

Throughout Earth’s history, species have lived, thrived and ultimately died out. But never before has so much biodiversity disappeared in such a short space of time. And certainly not due to another species. The use of chemicals in agriculture is one of the causes of species extinction.

According to the German Federal Agency for Civic Education, between 1970 and 2014, the global population of vertebrates declined by 60%, while in South and Central America, that figure is almost 90%. The number of species living in freshwater environments decreased by 83% during the same period.

Johannes Vogel, director of the Berlin Museum of Natural History, said losses within a single genus can have repercussions through the entire ecosystem — including on humans.

“Frogs are currently dying out worldwide because of a fungus spreading due to climate change,” he said. “Frogs eat a lot of mosquito larvae for example, so there will be more mosquitoes in the future — and mosquitoes cause more deaths globally than any other organism.” In the absence of mosquito-eating frogs, mosquitoes are spreading, and with them diseases.

How humans threaten entire ecosystems has become very significant.

Ecosystems are the interaction of different species that depend on one another for survival and their environment. Healthy ecosystems can withstand a certain amount of damage to an individual part and recover. “But the more we reduce the number of species, the more susceptible a system becomes to disturbance,” explained Andrea Perino of the German Center for Integrative Biodiversity Research at the University of Halle-Jena-Leipzig.

The Amazon rainforest, for example, has been reduced so drastically to make way for agriculture and mining that what’s left is also less able to regenerate, according to a recent study. It’s a dangerous feedback loop that could ultimately lead to this entire ecosystem being lost.

Why is conserving biodiversity so difficult?

As early as 1992, the UN Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro adopted the international Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). Under the convention, signatory countries committed to promoting sustainable economies that operate within our planet’s ecological limits. Further conferences and agreements followed. But so far, hardly any of the aims set out three decades ago have been achieved.

The 1.5 Celsius target is both a clear political target and a catchphrase. Perino said the problem is all individual nations had to set their own conservation targets, but many of these have amounted to nothing more than declarations of intent. Particularly in industrialized nations, very few effective measures have been implemented.

Tools to assess progress toward CBD targets have also been lacking. “It is often not at all clear whether protective measures are achieving anything at all,” Perino said. “We urgently need comprehensive monitoring of any changes.”

Why do we talk about the climate more than nature?

“While we can agree to work toward the 1.5 degrees Celsius target on the climate crisis — the fight against the crisis of nature is much more complex,” said Nicola Uhde, biodiversity policy expert at German environmental NGO BUND. “It cannot easily be reduced to a buzzword or standard.”

“Awareness of the value of nature often only emerges with its loss,” she added. Unlike floods, droughts or melting glaciers, dying frogs rarely make the headlines. Yet the climate and biodiversity crises are intertwined.

Rising temperatures and changing climatic conditions are driving some species to extinction. And as forests are cleared and wetlands drained, not only do the species they support vanish, essential carbon sinks are also lost, which in turn increases global warming. This is why both crises need to be tackled together, said Tockner: “Renaturation, such as the rewetting of peatlands, not only helps biodiversity, but also the climate.”

Renaturation shows the climate and biodiversity crises can be tackled together! But, what are the sticking points at COP15?

In the preliminary negotiations for the UN Biodiversity Conference coming up in Canada, signatories — now around 200 states — have said they intend to place 30% of global land and sea under protection by 2030.

Perino said this sounds good, but it is unclear what is meant by protection. “After all, there are both strong and weak categories of protection. And nature often finds its way back into balance not through protection, but through renaturation,” said Perino.

It’s also unclear how this 30% of the surface of the Earth is to be spread between countries. BUND is demanding that each country should apply the rule domestically. “This is important so that all existing ecosystems are covered in the process; that is, not just tundras or the Antarctic, but also tropical rainforests, Central Europe’s red beech forests, the mangroves or coral reefs,” said Uhde.

Financing protection measures is another sticking point in the negotiations. In the wealthiest countries, very few primary natural habitats have survived industrialization, while many economically weaker countries still have far more biodiversity. To better protect it, poorer nations are calling for rich countries to increase financial aid for conservation from $160 billion (€152 billion) to $700 billion (€667 billion) by 2030.

Multiple factors are affecting most of the species on Earth

Essay by Thomas E. Lovejoy, Science Advances, May 10, 2019

Thomas Lovejoy, Univ. Professor, Environmental Science and Policy, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA 22030

REFERENCE: Science Advances, 06 May 2019: Vol. 5, no. 5, eaax7492; DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aax7492

The first official report of the Inter-governmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), released on May 6th in Paris, provides the first modern authoritative assessment of planetary biodiversity and related contributions of nature to people (CNP)–dubbed ecosystem services. Ecosystem services are those charities of nature, both nebulous and tangible, that serve as the backbone of human well-being: food, fresh water, clean air, wood, fiber, genetic resources, and medicine.

The IPBES is being called the IPCC of Biodiversity, with the IPCC referring to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the recognized assembly of the United Nations created in 1988 to provide global leaders with regular scientific assessment of the implications and risks of climate change. The IPBES, founded in 2012, came slow on the heels of the IPCC for a variety of reasons but in large part because grappling with, gathering data for, and analyzing the myriad features of global biodiversity and ecosystem services are astoundingly complex endeavors.

A scientific assessment of the state of biodiversity and ecosystems services in the context of climate reveals that all are inextricably intertwined, united yet dispersed, invaluable yet monetizable, reflecting nature in its holistic role as the bedrock of human civilization. The 2005 Millennium Ecosystem Assessment served as an early appraisal of the state of life on Earth. The IPBES synthesis is today’s report card, and it tells a short story: Eden is gone. While the planetary garden still exists, it is in deep disrepair, frayed and fragmented almost beyond recognition.

Not unexpectedly, the specific findings are depressing. More species are threatened with extinction than any time in human history. Ever growing human populations and their activities have severely altered 75% of the terrestrial environment, 40% of the marine environment, and 50% of streams and rivers. The health of freshwater biodiversity has been particularly neglected because freshwater is widely understood and managed more as a physical resource vital to survival rather than as the special and delicate habitat that it provides for an extraordinary array of organisms.

The primary drivers of negative trends are also no surprise: In descending order, these adverse impacts include rapid changes in land and sea use, direct exploitation of natural resources, climate change, pollution, and invasive species. Of monumental note is that, collectively, significant destructive forces arise from the actions of impoverished peoples living at the edges of society, working to eke out an existence often with little choice but to have minimal concern for environmental impact.

The role of climate change in biodiversity loss is also severely underestimated because of the lag between rising levels of CO2 concentration and the equivalent accumulation of the radiant heat that leads to warming and biological impact. Ironically, climate change is also, in part, the consequence of biodiversity destruction: The amount of carbon in the atmosphere from degraded and destroyed ecosystems is now equal to what remains in extant ecosystems. The additional CO2 emanating from the combustion of fossil fuels is in fact ancient solar energy that was trapped and converted by ancient ecosystems and is now being released in a geological instant.

While the IPCC reports have documented climate change and sounded warnings, the IPBES report highlights aspects of the degradation of planetary natural systems that equally warrant immediate attention and action. As dire as the findings in the assessment may be, they likely also hold the ingredients of solutions. For example, economists and decision makers are largely unaware of (or chose to ignore) the contributions of natural resources to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of indigenous peoples or the poor; at the same time, many of those people are often equally reluctant to embrace the monetary value of local ecosystem services.

CNP and ecosystem services are essentially two congruent valuation systems, and both are recognized by the IPBES assessment. The danger is that decision makers are often distant from the actual sites of valued biodiversity and ecosystems; as a result, they do not see actual monetized benefits from the sustainable use of natural resources and so peg the value of these resources at, or near, zero.

Adding to the flaws in the calculus of conservation and sustainability is the surprising inattention to the value of new discoveries from biodiversity and ecosystems to life sciences research. For example, researchers recently discovered that a soil fungus in Nova Scotia can functionally disarm antibiotic-resistant bacteria, a discovery that could transform practices in medicine, agriculture, and beyond. About 70% of drugs used for cancer are natural or bioinspired products.

The polymerase chain reaction aided by an enzyme from a Yellowstone hot spring bacterium may have generated close to a trillion dollars of benefit through rapid multiplication of genetic material. The list of treasures uncovered in the elements and processes of the natural world grows daily; at present, however, these kinds of contributions from natural resources to human health and life sciences are neither recognized nor accounted for and so are treated as free and without value.

The IPBES report findings are more than sobering: 35 of 44 assessed targets of the Sustainable Development Goals depend on authentic transformational change to reverse trends of degradation. The assessment concludes that the current course of planetary degradation can be altered only with preemptive and precautionary actions, strengthened laws and related enforcement, dramatic changes in economic and social incentives, increased monitoring of biodiversity and ecosystems, and integrated decision-making across sectors and jurisdictions.

These dramatic changes will need to be supported by leaders, who themselves must promote new ways of understanding the meaning of “quality of life,” ones that value consuming less, wasting less, conserving more, and engaging truly novel approaches to global resource conservation and management. New tools will need to include technologies, creative economic models, and future-facing patterns of social behavior that are respectful of the diversity of needs, cultures, and local resources across the planet. These tools will need to be designed and applied to manage land use, agricultural development, and resource distribution in ways that will feed everyone adequately without further destroying nature.

Happily, the publication of the IPBES assessment coincides with new and hopeful visions emerging from the conservation community that adjust the scale and impact of collective efforts upward dramatically. The Edward O. Wilson Biodiversity Foundation’s goal of Half-Earth was one of the first, with the aim of conserving half of the planet’s lands and seas to safeguard the bulk of biodiversity, including humans. The National Geographic Society has a goal to place 30% of the planet in protected areas by 2030. The Global Deal for Nature, recently published in Science Advances (eaaw2869, March 19/19 issue) is essentially coincident with the One Earth vision from the Leonardo DeCaprio Foundation.

The story of the unraveling of the planetary web of life has been told for decades, well before Rachel Carson’s prediction of silent springs. With its publication, the IPBES assessment, however imperfect, is now the most complete and comprehensive synthesis to date on the state of the health of the planet with all its natural resources and potential for contributing to human well-being.

Readers at all levels of government, in the for-profit sector, and in civil society should heed its warnings and act on its vision and recommendations in haste. Together, we now sit at the fail-safe point and must decide what to do; collectively, all sectors must embrace the challenges raised by the assessment, rise to action, and do what we must do to ensure a viable future for our living planet and for humans and the extraordinary variety of life with which it and we are blessed.

>>> This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial license, which permits use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, so long as the resultant use is not for commercial advantage and provided the original work is properly cited.

A Global Deal For Nature: Guiding principles, milestones, and targets

Authors are E. Dinerstein1,*, C. Vynne1, E. Sala2, A. R. Joshi3, S. Fernando1, T. E. Lovejoy4, J. Mayorga2,5, D. Olson6, G. P. Asner7, J. E. M. Baillie2, N. D. Burgess8, K. Burkart9, R. F. Noss10, Y. P. Zhang11, A. Baccini12, T. Birch13, N. Hahn1,14, L. N. Joppa15 and E. Wikramanayake16

* – 1RESOLVE, Washington, DC, USA, 2National Geographic Society, Washington, DC, USA, 3University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA, 4George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, USA, 5University of California, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA, USA, 6Zoological Society of London, London, UK, 7Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA, 8UN Environment World Conservation Monitoring Centre, Cambridge, UK, 9Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation, Los Angeles, CA, USA, 10Florida Institute for Conservation Science, Chuluota, FL, USA, 11State Key Laboratory of Genetic Resources and Evolution, Kunming Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming 650223, China, 12Woods Hole Research Center, Woods Hole, MA, USA, 13Google, Mountain View, CA, USA, 14Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, USA, 15Microsoft, Redmond, WA, USA, 16Environmental Foundation Ltd., Colombo, Sri Lanka

SOURCE: Science Advances, April 19, 2019: Vol. 5, no. 4, eaaw2869, DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aaw2869

ABSTRACT for The Global Deal for Nature

The Global Deal for Nature (GDN) is a time-bound, science-driven plan to save the diversity and abundance of life on Earth. Pairing the GDN and the Paris Climate Agreement would avoid catastrophic climate change, conserve species, and secure essential ecosystem services. New findings give urgency to this union: Less than half of the terrestrial realm is intact, yet conserving all native ecosystems—coupled with energy transition measures—will be required to remain below a 1.5°C rise in average global temperature.

The GDN targets 30% of Earth to be formally protected and an additional 20% designated as climate stabilization areas, by 2030, to stay below 1.5°C. We highlight the 67% of terrestrial ecoregions that can meet 30% protection, thereby reducing extinction threats and carbon emissions from natural reservoirs. Freshwater and marine targets included here extend the GDN to all realms and provide a pathway to ensuring a more livable biosphere.

INTRODUCTION to The Global Deal for Nature

Nature conservation efforts, like climate change policies, are being reassessed in the midst of a planetary emergency. Climate concerns rightly prompted the 2015 Paris Agreement, which has facilitated coordinated global action not only among governments but also among companies, cities, and citizens. Research since then suggests that efforts to stabilize the climate and avoid the undesirable outcomes of >1.5°C warming will require a rapid reduction in land conversion and a moratorium by about 2035.

The most logical path to avoid the approaching crisis is maintaining and restoring at least 50% of the Earth’s land area as intact natural ecosystems, in combination with energy transition measures. Those measures by themselves will likely be insufficient and must be augmented by restoration to create negative emissions to offset the likely clearing and release of greenhouse gases that will occur until a 2035 moratorium can be reached.

Natural ecosystems are key to maintaining human prosperity in a warming world and 65% of Paris Agreement signatories have committed to restoring or conserving ecosystems. Intact forests, and especially tropical forests, sequester twice as much carbon as planted monocultures. These findings make forest conservation a critical approach to combat global warming. Because about two-thirds of all species on Earth are found in natural forests, maintaining intact forest is vital to prevent mass extinction.

However, carbon sequestration and storage extends far beyond rainforests: Peatlands, tundra, mangroves, and ancient grasslands are also important carbon storehouses and conserve distinct assemblages of plants and animals. Further, the importance of intact habitats extends to the freshwater and marine realms, with studies pointing to least disturbed wetlands and coastal habitats being superior in their ability to store carbon when compared with more disturbed sites.

Opportunities to address both climate change and the extinction crisis are time bound. Climate models show that we are approaching a tipping point: If current trends in habitat conversion and emissions do not peak by 2030, then it will become impossible to remain below 1.5°C. Similarly, if current land conversion rates, poaching of large animals, and other threats are not markedly slowed or halted in the next 10 years, “points of no return” will be reached for multiple ecosystems and species.

It has become clear that beyond 1.5°C, the biology of the planet becomes gravely threatened because ecosystems literally begin to unravel. Degradation of the natural environment also diminishes quality of life, threatens public health, and triggers human displacement because of lost access to clean drinking water, reduced irrigation of important subsistence crops, and exacerbation of climate-related storm and drought events. These occurrences will become increasingly worse without substantial action over the next few years. Additionally, human migrations, triggered by climate change–induced droughts and sea-level rise in combination with extreme weather events, could displace more than 100 million people by 2050, mostly in the southern hemisphere.

A companion pact to the Paris Agreement—a Global Deal for Nature (GDN)—could help ensure that climate targets are met while preventing species extinctions and the rapid erosion of biodiversity and ecosystem services in the terrestrial, freshwater, and marine realms. The concept of a GDN as a policy mechanism emerged from an earlier study restricted to protecting biodiversity in the terrestrial realm. We expand that perspective to the freshwater and marine realms while simultaneously lending support to an alternative pathway to remaining below 1.5°C that relies heavily on aggressive conservation of remaining habitats.

This approach not only safeguards biodiversity but also is the cheapest and fastest alternative for addressing climate change and is not beholden to developing carbon removal technologies unlikely to be effective or to scale in the time-bound nature of the current twin crises. Here, we offer a policy framework based on scientific guidelines that could pair nature and climate deals, be mutually reinforcing, and recommend time-bound milestones and targets. We identify specific threats and drivers of biodiversity loss, and discuss costs of implementation of a GDN. Finally, we introduce breakthrough technologies for monitoring progress.

DISCUSSION of The Global Deal for Nature

The Paris Agreement offers a useful template for a GDN because it sets global targets, provides a model for financial support, and supports bottom-up efforts. All nations have signed on to this agreement. But the Paris Agreement is only a half-deal; it will not alone save the diversity of life on Earth or conserve ecosystem services upon which humanity depends. It is also reliant on natural climate solutions that require bolstering outside of the Paris Agreement to ensure that these natural approaches can contribute to its success. Yet, land-based sequestration efforts receive only about 2.5% of climate mitigation dollars.

At the same time that climate scientists were arriving at a single numerical target for maintaining Earth’s atmosphere at safe limits, biodiversity scientists identified multiple targets for the required habitats to conserve the rest of life on Earth. But to communicate effectively, as in the Paris Agreement, these many needs could be encompassed within a single target: protect at least half of Earth by 2050 and ensure that these areas are connected. The evidence arising since these calls were made clearly demonstrate that while we may be able to afford to wait to formally designate 50% protected in nature reserves, we need to fast-track the protection and restoration of all natural habitat by 2030.

A GDN that will ensure that we have at least 50% intact natural habitats by 2030 is the only path that will enable a climate-resilient future and is one that will offer a myriad of other benefits. Since the crucial role of intact, diverse systems has also been demonstrated to be essential for carbon storage the GDN will need to emphasize mechanisms for protecting intactness both inside and outside of protected areas (e.g. in CSAs/OECMs) well before 2050.

Tallis and colleagues demonstrated that with existing technologies and large-scale adoption of common conservation approaches (e.g., protected areas, renewable energy, sustainable fisheries management, and regenerative agriculture), it would be possible to advance a desired future of multiple economic and environmental objectives (including 50% of each biome intact, with the exception of temperate grasslands). This spatial coexistence is possible even with the prospects of feeding and supporting the material needs of a growing human population. The success of proposals to boost food production while protecting biodiversity will likely depend on our success in addressing human population growth, however, and our willingness to marshal financial resources accordingly.

Gross costs for nature conservation measures across half the Earth could be $100 billion per year, but the international community currently spends $4 billion to $10 billion per year on conservation. Extending the area-based targets in the post-2020 strategic plan for biodiversity to 30% by 2030 will likely require direct involvement of the private sector. In key sectors—fishing, forestry, agriculture, and insurance—corporations may be able to align their financial returns directly to reaching targets recommended by the GDN. However, the typical approach to conservation planning does not involve the real (net) costs because the direct benefits of conservation and the averted costs of inaction are not included in the calculations. Barbier and colleagues showed that potential direct benefits from biodiversity conservation for various sectors range from increasing annual profits by $53 billion in the seafood industry to $4300 billion in the insurance industry.

In addition, marine reserves can provide more economic benefits from tourism than fishing in many locations worldwide. Financial investments of even 10 to 20% of potential benefits from biodiversity conservation from three key industries could make up as much of one-third of the commitment needed to implement a GDN. A GDN may appeal to a broader set of nonstate actors, including corporations and local government entities. The solutions could be implemented in ways that have direct positive benefits to local or regional communities and especially indigenous peoples. Land-based jobs, food security, green space, access to wilderness, and ecosystem services are benefits that deliver advantages to rural and urban dwellers alike.

Complex life has existed on Earth for about 550 million years, and it is now threatened with the sixth mass extinction. If we fail to change course, it will take millions of years for Earth to recover an equivalent spectrum of biodiversity. Future generations of people will live in a biologically impoverished world. Adopting a GDN and the milestones and targets presented here would better allow humanity to develop a vibrant, low-impact economy and conserve intact ecosystems, all while leaving space for nature. Linking the GDN and the Paris Agreement could solve the two major challenges facing the biosphere and all the species within it and result in a return to safe operating space for humanity.

This guy knows his stuff and his ants!

In his latest book, Pulitzer Prize–winning scientist Edward O. Wilson argues for a bold step in conservation

From an Article by Dean Kuipers, Outside Magazine (March 2016), February 23, 2016

Photo: E.O. Wilson in the ant collection room at Harvard University.

Few people know more about biodiversity than Edward O. Wilson. The 86-year-old Harvard biologist and two-time Pulitzer Prize winner helped popularize the term in a groundbreaking 1988 report of the same name. So when he argues in his new book, Half-Earth: Our Planet’s Fight for Life ($26, Liveright), that species loss is a critical threat and that we need to turn fully half the planet’s land surface into biodiversity reserves, it’s more than an idle thought experiment.

“To let things continue at the present rate, we could easily be down to half the species left on earth,” Wilson told me from his home in Lexington, Massachusetts. “We could lose millions just in the next few decades.”

Like many scientists, Wilson believes that the planet is currently experiencing a “sixth extinction,” during which species are disappearing as much as 1,000 times faster than they did before humans were around. And we have yet to even encounter the vast majority of life-forms among us. We’ve named approximately two million species, but the best estimates are that another 6.7 million, give or take a million, have yet to be discovered.

Slowing the rate of extinction has long been a crusade for Wilson. More than ten years ago he calculated that, in order to stop or significantly slow species loss, 50 percent of the earth’s land must be protected. (Currently, only 15 percent is formally preserved.) “The only way we’re going to save the situation is by radical means,” he says.

His Half-Earth proposal is certainly that. Many of the world’s preeminent naturalists helped him compile a list of areas with high biodiversity—not just the rainforests of the Congo and the Amazon, but also little-known spots like the church forests of Ethiopia and the just-opening wildlands of Myanmar.

Safeguarding an additional 35 percent of the earth comes with logistical challenges: Would people in preservation areas be relocated, or would they be allowed to stay? Would governments agree to such protections? Oddly, Wilson skips over these issues and instead spends a portion of the book criticizing “new conservationists,” a small group of individuals who believe that smart economic development rather than high fences is the best strategy to preserve what’s left of the wild.

Wilson lambasts people like Peter Kareiva, current director of the UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, who has advocated higher living standards as a way to save nature. Fearing a loss of emphasis on the nonhuman, Wilson uses his book as a club in this internecine fight. “I do believe they are dangerous,” he says. “I had to come down pretty hard on them.”

Kareiva, for his part, admires the Half-Earth idea. “Wilson has been a crusader for biodiversity unlike any other scientist,” he says. But he thinks the antagonism is misplaced. “If you sat us in a room and put a map in front of us and asked us what do we want the world to look like in 2050, we might end up with very similar maps.”

Indeed, in the second to last chapter of Half-Earth, Wilson makes the case for smart and fast development. Human population, he believes, will peak at around 11 billion near the end of the current century. (It now stands at 7.3 billion.) Technology will help transform the global economy from extensive (requiring large amounts of money, people, and natural resources) to intensive (boosting both productivity and efficiency). And energy production will continue to become less connected to fossil fuels. In short, over the coming decades, humanity will achieve a smaller footprint and leave room for other species. It’s the kind of argument a new conservationist might make.

“We’re finally seeing conservation starting to get more on point,” says Michael Shellenberger, president of the Breakthrough Institute, which has rattled mainstream environmentalism in part by arguing that it needs to embrace “ecomodernist” development to fix the planet. Shellenberger has his own critique of Wilson: “He doesn’t address the dirty, bloody work of conservation on the ground.”

Nor did he intend to. Half-Earth is less detailed plan than aspirational goal. Wilson is leaving it up to us to figure out how to do it, and after looking at the technological and economic trends, he believes we will. “The reason is that we are thinking organisms trying to understand how the world works,” he writes. “We will come awake.”

Wherever Wilson presents this idea, he is wildly cheered. He considers that evidence of a generation prepared to make tough decisions. “Many young people see in this something worthwhile to dedicate themselves to,” says Wilson. “This book is saying we don’t have to yield. We don’t have to plant the white flag and start setting ourselves up for the 
destruction of the living world.”

Earth, Protected

Though the book doesn’t include a comprehensive map of proposed sanctuaries, Outside assembled an approximate guide to the best places in the biosphere, according to Wilson 
and other scientists. —Nicola Payne

Homeland Security

The redwood forests of California, the South’s longleaf pine savanna, and the Madrean pine oak woodlands of the mountainous Southwest are crucial North American ecosystems.

Under Siege

The Amazon River basin, the forests of the Congo basin, and the church forests of Ethiopia have faced unrelenting decimation by human hands in recent years.

Hot Spots

Wilson and others believe that certain countries possess such rich biodiversity that the majority of their land is worthy of study and protection. These include Bhutan, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Myanmar, Madagascar, New Guinea, and South Africa.

Asst. Prof. Christiana Peppard, Fordham Univ.

Living on Earth – Public Radio International, June 20, 2015

Pope Francis recently released his highly-anticipated Encyclical, “Laudato Si,” subtitled “On Care for Our Common Home.” Assistant Professor of Theology, Science and Ethics at Fordham University, Christiana Peppard, tells host Steve Curwood that in it, the Pope calls on people to be moral stewards of the planet and rectify ecological and social injustices plaguing the world today.

Pope Calls for Radical Shift in the Human-Nature Relationship

CURWOOD: There has been probably no more eagerly-awaited pronouncement on the question of climate and environmental degradation, and the risks to the poor ,than the encyclical just delivered by Pope Francis. The charismatic Pope is not only the leader of the planet’s billion Roman Catholics, he has also caught the admiration and imagination of billions more. And his background with a degree in chemistry makes him a formidable adversary to those who pooh-pooh the scientific consensus and attempt to deny that humans are changing the planet’s atmospheric chemistry with heat-trapping gases. To put the Pope’s encyclical in context, we are joined on the line now from New York by Christiana Peppard, Assistant Professor of Theology, Science and Ethics at Fordham University. Welcome back to Living on Earth, Christiana.

PEPPARD: Thanks, Steve. It’s wonderful to be here on such a happy occasion.

CURWOOD: So let’s start off first with some basics. What exactly is an encyclical and how important are they?

PEPPARD: An encyclical is an authoritative teaching document issued by a pope that addresses issues of faith and morality, generally having to do with issues that are coming up in contemporary life. To the question of how important encyclicals are, they’re really, really important. They’re among the most authoritative teachings that the Catholic church has. And they’re meant to be guidelines: sets of moral guidelines, frameworks, paradigms, reference documents to guide Catholics and Bishops and people of goodwill in thinking about matters of common concern.

CURWOOD: The headlines on this encyclical have focused on the warming climate and the Pope’s call for the phase out of fossil fuels, but before we get to some specifics, let’s talk about the Pope’s overall approach here. This encyclical opens by calling for a new and universal solidarity among humans. What’s he talking about?

PEPPARD: Right. That’s a vast idea that sounds like it might have something to do with the climate, and it does. But you’re absolutely right that it’s not just a climate encyclical. This is, as I see it, a real salvo from the Pope to all of humanity asking for universal solidarity on issues of common concern and especially on the question of the Earth, — or, in theological language, creation. He leads with the fact that the planet is falling into a state of disrepair, people are deeply mired in poverty, and this represents a failure of human responsibility. So his invitation is to a renewed, transformative form of responsibility and global solidarity with one another, involving care for the Earth as our common home. So that’s part of why the document is subtitled, “On the care of our common home.”

CURWOOD: Now, what kind of relationship is the Pope calling for humans to have with nature, what he calls creation?

PEPPARD: Yeah, you know, this document is really fascinating because it draws on established Catholic social teaching on the environment, some ideas that really got going with Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI. But at the heart of this document is relationships. So I would say that far more than being a policy white paper or a political précis on how various international negotiations ought to proceed, it’s a document on ethics, it’s a document of moral vision. And it’s calling for a transformation in the way we regard our relationships: between humans and God, humans and each other, and humans and the planet. And the Pope’s diagnosis is that there are real spiritual malaises, as well as structural impediments, to the right functioning of those relationships at present. The Pope says the church has interpreted humans as having dominion over the planet, and that dominion has too often been lived out as domination. Christians and Church history who have done this are wrong. We need to get back to a better and more accurate interpretation, and here’s what that would look like.

CURWOOD: So, in this, he seems very concerned about environmental refugees. What do you think motivated that?

PEPPARD: I think the Pope sees a lot of the dynamics of environmental degradation globally as driven by economic structures of profit, and a focus on economic development and growth that is not accountable to the limitations of what the planet can absorb. And it is not accountable to the burdens that are carried by people living in poverty. So, as a Pope who comes from South America, who spent time in slums, who has written extensively about the lives of the poor and problems of neocolonialism, and who has had critiques, frankly, of what he has called the deified market, making the market into something like an idol or God — he’s very concerned with the fact that people no longer have homes, literally and metaphorically. So environmental refugees, you know that’s a huge problem for people displaced by, say, large dams or rapid desertification. But it’s also a spiritual problem in, as he writes, “everyone needs a home and is entitled to a home.”

CURWOOD: Let’s talk about his economics. How radical is his vision? It sounds like he’s calling for a revolution in this document.

PEPPARD: You know, I think he is. I think he is calling for a revolution. Now it’s never going to be a violent revolution, it’s never going to be reducible to endorsing a particular form of political economy. But what he’s saying is so much in line with what folks like Gus Speth and others thinking about the new economy have been talking about. And that is simply that there need to be moral limits on economic quote on quote progress. So he writes about in an era where human creativity has issued forth in robust kinds of technological advances and the creation of amazing wealth. The fact of the matter is that inequalities persist. And he has a great quote in the document where he says that the environment is deteriorating, and we still have not solved the problem of poverty. And he goes on to explain how our moral capabilities and our powers of reflection and action have not caught up with the powers of our technology and our economic systems. And that is to the detriment of all of us, especially the planet and the poor.

CURWOOD: Now, specifically on the climate, he says, look, humans are responsible for most of what’s going on, and in terms of the international negotiations, he calls for us to deal with them with “common and differentiated responsibilities.” What does he want? What’s he talking about?

PEPPARD: Well, the language of “common and differentiated responsibilities” is one that you see in diplomacy and in the history of negotiations over international climate treaties. So, I think that the Pope has a significant, powerful audience in mind for this encyclical. Yes, it’s directed to everyone on the planet, but there are a lot of passages that are directed towards super developed nations, such as our own. And what he says here is that while there have been some successful international treaties in the past, there have also been some real failures — the Kyoto Protocol, for example, and even more recent climate negotiations. And he is extremely and really quite exquisitely clear that the burdens have been caused by certain industrial actors — we are central among them — and the responsibility for them must be taken on primarily by those countries which have benefited the most. So he uses the language here of an ecological and social debt that highly developed nations owe to less developed nations. And this is really powerful language. He even goes so far as to say, in terms of particular options, that he’s unconvinced that carbon pricing or cap-and-trade would do anything more than simply be a bandage, that doesn’t amount to the radical change that is required by the situation. And that’s his phrase, the radical change that is necessary.

CURWOOD: Yeah, looking at that section where he has his strategy of buying and then selling carbon credits can lead to a new form of speculation, and it goes onto say it may simply become a ploy which permits maintaining the excessive consumption of some countries and sectors.

PEPPARD: Exactly.

CURWOOD: Now, consumption is the problem from his perspective in this — not population — and he talks about, let me quote him here, this paradigm over consumption that leads people to believe that they are free as long as they have the supposed freedom to consume. What does he mean?

PEPPARD: What the Pope is saying in this document is that the idea of human freedom as amounting to what we can buy, or what we can consume, that gives us momentary utility or pleasure — he thinks that is an impoverished form of freedom. He talks about the need for an authentic human freedom that means, for example, that all people have basically livable standards of life, including, he talks about in paragraph 30 — one of my particular interests — the right to clean water, and various other fundamental issues that undergird the right to a life with dignity. Obviously population politics, reproduction, and the Catholic Church — that’s a big topic, and the Pope doesn’t really get into the reproductive aspects, or sexual ethics or any of that. What he says — and frankly, I think he’s right, at least on this part — is that we cannot merely think about the environmental crisis as a problem of sheer numbers. That is just flat footed. Yes, people impact the planet, so, logically, it would make sense that more people would impact the planet more. But he rightly points out that there are certain sectors of humanity, I’m among them, you’re among them, the listeners on this show are among them, who consume so much more than our fair share, that we really need to take a look at our own mentalities of consumption and the spiritual malaise that accompanies them.

CURWOOD: So what happens next? If this is a letter to the world’s Catholic bishops, what do they do with it?

PEPPARD: That is a great question, and in a sense, that is the question that everyone wants to know. I think the timing of the encyclical is clear. There are big negotiations coming up about international treaties and collaborative goals and opportunities for what he calls universal solidarity. So I think next steps are to really think hard and with humility about how we, as a nation, individuals and our representatives, can move forward in participating in a more just and inclusive world. But then there are questions at the individual level, or for bishops or priests or parishes. I’m not as involved in those aspects of things, I’m more on the ethics and scholarship side. But, as a professor and as someone who has been struck by the powerful analyses in this document, my hope is actually that people sit down with it and read it. Even if it’s bit by bit, or little by little, all 246 paragraphs — not with the idea that it needs to be analyzed and that it provides a specific road map of who to vote for; it doesn’t. But to read it as a document of contemplation, and to try to see with the eyes of poetry and beauty and ethics what the pope might be asking of us, and what various ways of living that out might be. Not everyone’s going to agree with everything in there, but the document really is an invitation and a set of principles for moral reflection.

CURWOOD: Ever the pastor, Pope Francis. Christiana Peppard is an assistant professor of theology, science, and ethics at Fordham University. Christiana, thanks so much for taking the time with us today.

PEPPARD: Thank you for having me, Steve.

Related links:
- Pope Francis’s “Laudato Si” Encyclical Letter
- Statement by the President on Pope Francis’s Encyclical
- Peppard’s chapter by chapter summary and analysis of the encyclical
- “On Planet in Distress, a Papal Call to Action”
- Anticipation of Pope Francis’s encyclical
- About Christiana Peppard

Open Letter From the Society for Conservation Biology, February 28, 2013

The Society for Conservation Biology sent a letter to the Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Energy, and Department of Interior requesting that those three agencies conduct research on the biodiversity-related impacts of unconventional natural gas exploration involving hydraulic fracturing technology as part of a larger federal effort to determine how best to regulate and manage this rapidly-growing industry.

Hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) is the process by which oil or natural gas is extracted from dense geologic formations through fractures created with pressurized fluid. The recent development of horizontal drilling technology has made it profitable to scale-up natural gas production in areas where it was previously uneconomical to develop natural gas. Projections estimate that natural gas production by this method will double in the next 30 years, with an additional 60,000 wells to be constructed in the Marcellus shale region of the eastern U.S. alone.

In response to this rapid development and general concerns about the possibility that fracking may contaminate freshwater supplies both above and below ground, the EPA, DOE, and DOI signed a Multi-Agency Collaboration on Unconventional Oil and Gas Research Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) in April of 2012 to ensure “the prudent development of energy sources while protecting human health and the environment.” The MOU called for a prioritized research agenda that will identify critical knowledge gaps related to fracking impacts, as well as an explicit timeline for developing this document. Thus far, the three agencies have failed to meet the MOU’s mandate, which called for a draft research plan being published for public review and comment by October of 2012 and a final research plan being published by January of 2013.

Among the 1,261 peer-reviewed studies of fracking currently published, there appear to be only a few that directly focus on the impacts of fracking on biological diversity or ecosystem health. Because of the potential risks and scientific uncertainties surrounding unconventional fracking practices, SCB suggested research priorities to address biodiversity for the multi-agency research collaboration.

While fracking is exempted from meeting the regulatory requirements of some environmental laws, including the Safe Drinking Water Act, the Federal government still retains authority under other environmental protection laws to help prevent environmental contamination or other damage caused by fracking. Accordingly, SCB also recommended to the agencies interim policy measures that can help to ensure the health of the nation’s aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems by affording additional regulatory protection pending the completion of those studies. States also have the ability to control most of these risks but in many cases have not enacted such measures.

Read the full letter HERE.

The Impact of Hormone-Disrupting Chemicals

United Nations Environment Programme World Health Organization, February 19, 2013

Many synthetic chemicals, untested for their disrupting effects on the hormone system, could have significant health implications according to the State of the Science of Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals, a new report by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and World Health Organization (WHO).

The joint study calls for more research to understand fully the associations between endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs)—found in many household and industrial products—and specific diseases and disorders. The report notes that with more comprehensive assessments and better testing methods, potential disease risks could be reduced, with substantial savings to public health.

Human health depends on a well-functioning endocrine system to regulate the release of certain hormones that are essential for functions such as metabolism, growth and development, sleep and mood. Some substances known as endocrine disruptors can change the function(s) of this hormonal system increasing the risk of adverse health effects. Some EDCs occur naturally, while synthetic varieties can be found in pesticides, electronics, personal care products and cosmetics. They can also be found as additives or contaminants in food.

The UN study, which is the most comprehensive report on EDCs to date, highlights some associations between exposure to EDCs and health problems including the potential for such chemicals to contribute to the development of non-descended testes in young males, breast cancer in women, prostate cancer in men, developmental effects on the nervous system in children, attention deficit /hyperactivity in children and thyroid cancer.

EDCs can enter the environment mainly through industrial and urban discharges, agricultural run-off and the burning and release of waste. Human exposure can occur via the ingestion of food, dust and water, inhalation of gases and particles in the air, and skin contact.

“Chemical products are increasingly part of modern life and support many national economies, but the unsound management of chemicals challenges the achievement of key development goals, and sustainable development for all,” said UN Under Secretary-General and UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner.  “Investing in new testing methods and research can enhance understanding of the costs of exposure to EDCs, and assist in reducing risks, maximizing benefits and spotlighting more intelligent options and alternatives that reflect a transition to a green economy,” added Steiner.

In addition to chemical exposure, other environmental and non-genetic factors such as age and nutrition could be among the reasons for any observed increases in disease and disorders. But pinpointing exact causes and effects is extremely difficult due to wide gaps in knowledge.

“We urgently need more research to obtain a fuller picture of the health and environment impacts of endocrine disruptors,” said Dr. Maria Neira, WHO’s Director for Public Health and Environment. “The latest science shows that communities across the globe are being exposed to EDCs, and their associated risks. WHO will work with partners to establish research priorities to investigate links to EDCs and human health impacts in order to mitigate the risks. We all have a responsibility to protect future generations.”

The report also raises similar concerns on the impact of EDCs on wildlife. In Alaska in the U.S., exposure to such chemicals may contribute to reproductive defects, infertility and antler malformation in some deer populations. Population declines in species of otters and sea lions may also be partially due to their exposure to diverse mixtures of PCBs, the insecticide DDT, other persistent organic pollutants and metals such as mercury. Meanwhile, bans and restrictions on the use of EDCs have been associated with the recovery of wildlife populations and a reduction in health problems.

The study makes a number of recommendations to improve global knowledge of these chemicals, reduce potential disease risks, and cut related costs. These include:

• Testing: known EDCs are only the ‘tip of the iceberg’ and more comprehensive testing methods are required to identify other possible endocrine disruptors, their sources and routes of exposure.
• Research: more scientific evidence is needed to identify the effects of mixtures of EDCs on humans and wildlife (mainly from industrial by-products) to which humans and wildlife are increasingly exposed.
• Reporting: many sources of EDCs are not known because of insufficient reporting and information on chemicals in products, materials and goods.
• Collaboration: more data sharing between scientists and between countries can fill gaps in data, primarily in developing countries and emerging economies.

“Research has made great strides in the last ten years showing endocrine disruption to be far more extensive and complicated than realized a decade ago,” said Professor Åke Bergman of Stockholm University and Chief Editor of the report.

“As science continues to advance, it is time for both management of endocrine disrupting chemicals and further research on exposure and effects of these chemicals in wildlife and humans.”

Visit EcoWatch’s BIODIVERSITY page for more related news on this topic.