Loss of Biodiversity and Extinctions

Massive Extinctions From Human Activity

As well as the need for biodiversity for continued ecosystem survival (as explained in the Who Cares?¹ section on this web site), from a human perspective, from common drugs to possible cures for cancers, most of our medicine come from plants, many of which are now endangered.

However, it has long been feared that human activity is causing massive extinctions². The previous link, to a report from Environment New Service (August 2, 1999) says that “The current extinction rate is now approaching 1,000 times the background rate and may climb to 10,000 times the background rate during the next century, if present trends continue. At this rate, one-third to two-thirds of all species of plants, animals, and other organisms would be lost during the second half of the next century, a loss that would easily equal those of past extinctions.” (Emphasis added)

Research of long term trends in the fossil record suggests that natural speed limits constrain how quickly biodiversity can rebound⁷ after waves of extinction. Hence, the rapid extinction rates mean that it could take a long time for nature to recover.

Additionally, as reported¹⁰ by UC Berkeley, using DNA comparisons, scientists have discovered what they have termed as an “evolutionary concept called parallelism, a situation where two organisms independently come up with the same adaptation to a particular environment.” This has an additional ramification when it comes to protecting biodiversity and endangered species. This is because in the past what we may have considered to be one species could actually be many. But, as pointed out by scientists, by putting them all in one group, it under-represents biodiversity, and these different evolutionarily species would not up getting the protection otherwise needed.

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Dwindling fish stocks

As Suurkula mentioned above, mass extinctions of marine life due to industrialized fishing has been a concern for many years. Yet, it rarely makes mainstream headlines. However, a report warning of marine species loss becoming a threat to the entire global fishing industry did gain media attention.

(Image source: Wikipedia¹⁵)

A research article in the journal, Science, warned commercial fish and seafood species may all crash by 2048¹⁶.

At the current rate of loss, it is feared the oceans may never recover. Extensive coastal pollution, climate change, over-fishing and the enormously wasteful practice of deep-sea trawling are all contributing to the problem¹⁷, as Inter Press Service (IPS) summarized.

As also explained on this site’s biodiversity importance section, ecosystems are incredibly productive and efficient—when there is sufficient biodiversity¹⁸. Each form of life works together with the surrounding environment to help recycle waste, maintain the ecosystem, and provide services that others—including humans—use and benefit from.

For example, as Steve Palumbi of Stamford University (and one of the authors of the paper) noted, the ocean ecosystems can

• Take sewage and recycle it into nutrients;
• Scrub toxins out of the water;
• Produce food for many species, including humans
• Turns carbon dioxide into food and oxygen

With massive species loss, the report warns, at current rates, in less than 50 years, the ecosystems could reach the point of no return, where they would not be able to regenerate themselves.

Dr. Boris Worm, one of the paper’s authors, and a world leader in ocean research, commented that:

Whether we looked at tide pools or studies over the entire world’s ocean, we saw the same picture emerging. In losing species we lose the productivity and stability of entire ecosystems. I was shocked and disturbed by how consistent these trends are—beyond anything we suspected.

— Dr. Boris Worm, Losing species¹⁹, Dalhousie University, November 3, 2006

“Current” is an important word, implying that while things look dire, there are solutions and it is not too late yet. The above report and the IPS article noted that protected areas show that biodiversity can be restored quickly. Unfortunately, “less than 1% of the global ocean is effectively protected right now” and “where [recovery has been observed] we see immediate economic benefits,” says Dr. Worm. Time is therefore of the essence.

An example of overfishing that has a ripple-effect on the whole fish-food chain is shark hunting.

The Great White Shark is the largest predatory fish. (Source: Wikipedia²¹)

Millions of sharks are killed each year from overfishing and trade. Many die accidentally in fishing nets set for tuna and swordfish, while others are caught for their meat or just for their fins.

A demand for shark-fin soup in places like China and Taiwan is decimating shark populations. Shark fin soup is considered a delicacy (not even a necessity) and can be extremely lucrative. So much money can be obtained just from the fin that fishermen hunting sharks will simply catch sharks and cut off their fins while they are alive, tossing the wriggling shark back into the ocean (to die, as it cannot swim without its fin). This saves a lot of room on fishing boats. Some video footage shown on documentaries such as National Geographic reveal how barbaric and wasteful this practice is.

Sharks are known as the “apex predator” of the seas. That is because in general sharks are at the top of the food chain. Without sufficient shark numbers the balance they provide to the ecosystem is threatened because nature evolved this balance through many millennia.

As WWF, the global conservation organization notes, “Contrary to popular belief, shark fins have little nutritional value and may even be harmful to your health²² over the long term as fins have been found to contain high levels of mercury.”

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Declining Ocean Biodiversity

In the past century, commercial whaling has decimated numerous whale populations, many of which have struggled to recover.

Whaling stations like this one in the Faroe Islands is also used to hold hunted dolphins and other animals. (Image source: Wikipedia²³)

Commercial whaling in the past was for whale oil. With no reason to use whale oil today, commercial whaling is mainly for food, while there is also some hunting for scientific research purposes.

Large scale commercialized whaling was so destructive that in 1986 a moratorium on whaling was set up by the International Whaling Commission²⁴ (IWC). As early as the mid-1930s, there were international attempts to recognize the impact of whaling and try and make it more sustainable, resulting in the actual set up of the IWC in 1946. Many commercial whaling nations have been part of this moratorium but have various objections and other pressures to try and resume whaling.

Japan often claims its whale-hunting is for scientific research; the general population are often quite skeptical of such claims. (Image source: © Greenpeace²⁵)

Japan is the prime example of hunting whales for the stated aim of scientific research while a lot of skepticism says it is for food. Greenpeace and other organizations often release findings that argue Japan’s whaling to be excessive or primarily for food, and for research as secondary.

General public negativity of commercial whaling has also led to a difference between traditional whaling communities in the arctic region and conservationists. Traditional indigenous communities have typically hunted whale in far smaller numbers commercially, mostly for local food consumption, but the impacts of large-scale commercial whaling has meant even their hunting is under pressure.

Some have argued for whale hunting as a way to sustain other marine populations. National Geographic Wild aired a program called, A Life Among Whales (broadcast June 14, 2008). It noted how a few decades ago, some fishermen campaigned for killing whales because they were apparently threatening the fish supply. A chain of events eventually came full circle and led to a loss of jobs:

• The massive reduction in the local whale population meant the killer whales in that region (that usually preyed on the younger whales) moved to other animals such as seals
• As seal numbers declined, the killer whales targeted otters
• As otter numbers were decimated, the urchins and other targets of otters flourished
• These decimated the kelp forests where many fish larvae grew in relative protection
• The exposed fish larvae were easy pickings for a variety of sea life
• Fishermen’s livelihoods were destroyed.

This may be a vivid example of humans interfering and altering the balance of ecosystems and misunderstanding the importance of biodiversity²⁶.

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Loss of forests equates to a loss of many species

© Centre for Science and Environment²⁹,
Campaign on Forests³⁰

A 20-year study has shown that deforestation and introduction of non-native species has led to about 12.5% of the world’s plant species to become critically rare ³¹. (In fact, as an example, a study suggests that the Amazon damage is worse than previously thought³², due to previously undetected types of selective logging and deforestation.)

A report from the World Commission on Forests and Sustainable Development suggests that the forests of the world have been exploited to the point of crisis³³ and that major changes in global forest management strategies would be needed to avoid the devastation.

What also makes this a problem is that many of the endangered species are only found in small areas of land, often within the borders of a single country.

New species of animals and plants are still being discovered. In Papua New Guinea, 44 new species of animals were discovered recently in the forests. Logging may affect these animals’ habitats, though. The loss of rainforests around the world, where many species of life are found will mean that potential knowledge, whether medicinal, sustenance sources, or evolutionary and scientific information etc. could be lost.

Brazil, which is estimated to have around 55,000³⁴ species of flora, amounting to some 22% of the world’s total and India for example, which has about 46,000³⁵ and some 81,000 animal species (amounting to some 8% of the world’s biodiversity), are also under various pressures, from corporate globalization, deforrestation, etc. So too are many other biodiverse regions, such as Indonesia, parts of Africa, and other tropical regions.

Sustainable Forests or Sustainable Profits?

The overly corporate-led form of globalization that we see today also affects how natural resources are used and what priorities they are used for.

It is true that cutting down forests or converting natural forests into monocultures of pine and eucalyptus for industrial raw material generates revenues and growth. But this growth is based on robbing the forest of its biodiversity and its capacity to conserve soil and water. This growth is based on robbing forest communities of their sources of food, fodder, fuel, fiber, medicine, and security from floods and drought.

— Vandana Shiva, Stolen Harvest, (South End Press, 2000), p.1

(Image source: Wikipedia³⁶)

We hear more about sustainable forestry practices by the large logging multinationals. However, what does that really mean? Who is it sustainable for? Society and the environment, or for the logging companies? By replanting trees that will grow quickly and allow them to be felled for “sustained” logging sounds like a good strategy. However, the trees that are favored for this (eucalyptus) require a lot of water to grow so quickly. As John Madeley points out:

[T]he [eucalyptus] trees achieve this rapid growth by tapping large quantities of groundwater, impoverishing surrounding vegetation and threatening to dry up local water courses.

— John Madeley, Big Business Poor Peoples; The Impact of Transnational Corporations on the World’s Poor, (Zed Books, 1999) p.76.

Madeley continues by describing the impact that the use of chemicals to treat woodpulp from the eucalyptus has on local fisheries and on food production. This has had terrible effects on indigenous people within such regions.

People and Forests

Quite often we make blanket statements or generalized conclusions that people are the cause of deforestation. While that is true, unfortunately all people around the world are not equal, and it also also follows that some are more responsible for deforestation than others. Often, in forests of the Amazon, Africa, or Asia, forest protection schemes have been promoted that go against indigenous peoples and cultures, rather than work with them.

As Indian activist and scientist Vandana Shiva and others have shown in countless work, indigenous people often have their cultures and lifestyle structured in a way that works with nature and would not undermine their own resource base. For example, in her book Stolen Harvests (South End Press, 2000) she describes how their traditional knowledge has been beneficial to the environment and has been developed and geared towards this understanding and respect of the ecosystems around them.

Hopetoun falls, Australia; an example of trying to preserve nature while allowing tourism. (Source: Wikipedia⁴²)

Yet because of blanket conclusions that humankind is responsible for deforestation, we risk assuming all types of societies are equally responsible for deforestation that is damaging to the environment. (This hints then, that for sustainable development projects, a more participatory approach can be accepted by local people, reducing the chance for conflict and distrust and therefore be more likely to succeed as well.)

As the cartoon, further above, from the Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment notes, logging companies and others can often have a larger impact on deforestation. Industrial agriculture and beef⁴³ production for example, is a major cause of deforestation in the Amazon, to raise cattle. This is not even for local needs, but to meet fast food restaurant demands in the Northern countries. A combination of geopolitics and economic agreements foster a scenario for such results to occur.

For more on this aspect of people and biodiversity, you can see also the following:

• Centre for Science and Environment⁴⁴ have a lot of resources on such issues. As an example, you can see:
  • Forest campaign⁴⁵
  • Pining for More⁴⁶, an article from their Down to Earth magazine (Vol 10, No 18 February 15, 2001). This article describes how Pine-based “sustainable” forests are not sustainable at all, and that Pine trees even make forest fires spread rapidly, while degrading local ecology, but grow fast, which is good for business.
• Participatory Forest Management—Restoring Ecological Health and Enhancing Economic Opportunity in Sub-Saharan Africa⁴⁷, by Todd Beer, Grassroots Globalization Network, Summer 2002. This is a report looking at how local communities in Sub-Saharan Africa can be beneficial to sustainable forest management.
• Vandana Shiva web site⁴⁸
• On this web site’s population and environmental stress⁴⁹ section, there is in-depth discussion on flawed and missed out assumption regarding ecological limits and factors that affect environmental degradation. These errors lead to often blaming the wrong groups of people for the problems and therefore lead to the promotion of inappropriate policies to deal with the issues.
• Beef⁵⁰ from this web site describes many aspects of deforestation and provides links and sources to other information.
• Ogiek⁵¹ web site. This web site is about the Ogiek indigenous people of Kenya’s Mau Forest, and highlights an example of how they are being denied to live on their lands, for fears of deforestation issues. Yet, logging companies have an interest in this forest as well.
• Saving forests: an inspiring success story from India⁵² from ID21 provides a summary of findings in India.

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Misuse of land and resources

How land is used to produce food can have enormous impacts on the environment and its sustainability. And this often has nothing to do with populations. Take the following as an example:

Because industrial agriculture promotes the use of monocultures, rather than a diversity of crops, the loss of biodiversity is leading to more resource usage, as described above. This as well as other political situations such as the motives for dumping surplus food on to developing countries to undersell the local farmers, leads to further hunger around the world.

For more information on land and hunger issues, this web site provides sections on:

• Food Dumping [Aid] Maintains Poverty⁶⁰
• Land Rights⁶¹
• Consumption and Consumerism⁶²
• Food and Agriculture Issues⁶³

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Long Term Costs

If ecosystems deteriorates to an unsustainable level, then the problems resulting can be very expensive, economically, to reverse.

In Bangladesh and India, for example, logging of trees and forests means that the floods during the monsoon seasons can be very deadly⁶⁴. Similarly, many avalanches, and mud slides in many regions around the world that have claimed many lives, may have been made worse by the clearing of so many forests, which provide a natural barrier, that can take the brunt of such forces.

As the Centre for Science and Environment mentions, factors such as climate change and environmental degradation can impact regions more so, and make the impacts of severe weather systems even worse than they already are⁶⁵. As they further point out, for poor regions, such as Orissa in India, this is even more of a problem.

Vanishing coral reefs⁶⁶, forests and other ecosystems can all take their toll and even make the effects of some natural events even worse.

The cost of the effects together with the related problems that can arise (like disease, and other illness, or rebuilding and so on) is much more costly than the maintenance and sustainable development practices that could be used instead.

As an example, and assuming a somewhat alarmist scenario, if enough trees and forests and related ecosystems vanish or deteriorate sufficiently:

• Then the oxygen-producing benefits from such ecosystems is threatened.
• The atmosphere would suffer from more pollution.
• The cost to tackle this and the related illnesses, problems and other cascading effects would be enormous (as it can be assumed that industrial pollution could increase, with less natural ecosystems to “soak” it up)
• Furthermore, other species in that ecosystem that would depend on this would be further at risk as well, which would lead to a downward spiral for that ecosystem.

Compare those costs to taking precautionary measures such as protecting forests and promoting more sustainable forms of development. Of course, people will argue that these situations will not occur for whatever reasons. Only when it is too late can others say “told you so” — a perhaps very nasty Catch 22.

Social costs to some segments of society can also be high. Take for example the various indigenous Indians of Latin America. Throughout the region, as aspects of corporate globalization spread, there is growing conflict between land and resources of the indigenous communities, and those required to meet globalization related needs. The following quote from a report on this issue captures this quite well:

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The Military and the Environment

Many military forces of the world also have an effect on the environment⁶⁸. Sometimes, the scale of problems⁶⁹ they leave when they move out of a training area or conflict is considerable. In some nations, such as the United States, the military can be exempt from many environmental regulations⁷⁰.

By no means a complete set of examples, the following illustrate some of the issues:

• In the Gulf War and Kosovo crisis, the US and UK used depleted Uranium which have environmental consequences⁷¹ as well.
• In the Vietnam war, the US used Agent Orange to defoliate the entire Vietnamese rainforest ecosystem. The effects are still being felt.
• In the Democratic Republic of Congo⁷², various forces often kill gorillas and other animals as they encroach upon their land.
• In Okinawa, the large US military bases also affect the environment for the local population⁷³.
• Vieques, Puerto Rico, the US use live rounds in bombing ranges, and low altitude flying for training. This also has had an effect on the environment.
• A report prepared by the Institute for Policy Studies, April 2000, called The International Grassroots Summit on Military Base Cleanup⁷⁴ provides a lot of details and many more examples.

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Other Related Global Issues and Causes

Why is it that these problems seem to be in developing countries? Don’t they know how to take care of their environment? That is what many ask in the industrialized nations. What people in the richer countries often fail to realize is that often their very own “lending hand” has been the one that takes most of what the environment has to offer, often in an unsustainable way. The debt that the poor countries are in has led to the stripping of resources in order to pay back what is owed. To learn more:

• This web site’s look at Consumption and consumerism⁷⁵ provides a deeper look at the enormous costs to society and to the environment by certain consumption habits. Given that the culture of consumption is so central to most societies today, it is often the system itself that is very wasteful.
• This web site’s page on Debt and the Environment⁷⁶ has more about the effects of debt on poverty and the environment.
• this web site’s page on structural adjustment⁷⁷ has more details of how debt has occurred and the structural adjustment policies that have led to governments stripping their environmental resources, reducing the cost of labor, exporting more to the industrialized countries, often without feeding their own people first, repaying more debt than spending on health or education, and so on.
• We have seen a glimpse of how the environment is related to global policies that have caused poverty and how poverty can affect the environment. Slowly, projects are helping at the local level for people to take ownership of their environment and help foster a sustainable development cycle. However, globalization, in its current form may have additional effects on the environment too. To learn more about how trade and poverty in general are related, go to this web site’s section on Trade, Economy, & Related Issues⁷⁸.
• The Genetically Engineered Food⁷⁹ section in this web site also discusses issues to do with patenting foods and seeds and introduces issues to do with the importance of agricultural diversity and other issues related to patents on genetic resources.
• Priscila Néri, from the social justice organization, Witness, posts an informative video asking if environmental rights are human rights. The point made is that for many communities, the environment provides a means for them to live. Environmental degradation jeopardizes that and as such, threaten their human rights too; the two are interwoven:
  Earth Day: Do Environmental Rights = Human Rights?⁸⁰, The Hub, Witness, April 20, 2009

  (See also this site’s section on human rights⁸¹.)

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