杏吧原创

The world is about to miss another deadline. By 2010 there was supposed to be 鈥渁 significant reduction鈥� in the speed at which varieties of life are disappearing.

Both the 1993 (CBD) and the United Nations鈥� 2000 call for it. But the most wide-ranging analysis of global biodiversity ever attempted has found that it鈥檚 not happening 鈥� despite what seem to be massive government efforts.

Never before has anyone produced a single measure of biodiversity across the thousands of species and habitats on Earth. 杏吧原创s working with CBD have developed 31 different surveillance schemes to track the loss of species, ecosystems or genetic variants in mammals, , and . This week, for the first time, they have put them together.

鈥淭ogether they provide overwhelming evidence that the natural world is being destroyed as fast as ever,鈥� says of the UN鈥檚 in Cambridge, UK, the study鈥檚 lead author. The analysis will be part of the CBD鈥檚 Global Biodiversity Outlook聽3, to be published next month.

Promises, promises

The surveys show the diversity of life, from sea grass to mammals, has worsened overall since 1970. Meanwhile pressures that erode diversity, from overfishing to alien species invasions, have increased.

Yet this wasn鈥檛 for lack of trying. Uniquely, in addition to disappearing species, the report also tracks the efforts that governments have made to keep the 2010 pledge. These have soared since 1970.

But they clearly haven鈥檛 worked too well. The problem, says Butchart, is that while there have been lots of plans on paper, 鈥渢hey have been inadequately targeted, implemented and funded鈥�. There are lots of protected areas, but they haven鈥檛 been given enough money and are not in the most biologically important places. More than 80聽per cent of governments have promised to tackle invasive alien species, but fewer than half have done anything.

There are some bright spots: European bison, for example, have recovered, and the New Zealand black stilt, a wading bird, was saved from extinction. 鈥淭hese show that we can look after nature if we apply adequate resources,鈥� says Butchart. An extra $4聽billion a year, according to one estimate, he says, might make the world鈥檚 protected areas effective.

Forces of destruction

鈥淏ut what do you expect?鈥� asks of the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, a leading fisheries scientist and co-author of the report. 鈥淭he forces destroying biodiversity are huge 鈥� human economic expansion, shoving everything out of its way. The forces working against that are tiny. This won鈥檛 change until a force emerges that is similar in strength to the forces spreading destruction.鈥�

The 193 nations that belong to the biodiversity convention will meet in October in Nagoya, Japan, to base new targets on this analysis. 鈥�2010 will not be the year losses were halted or even slowed,鈥� says Butchart. 鈥淏ut it must be the year in which governments started taking the issue seriously and substantially increased efforts to take care of what is left on our planet.鈥�

Journal reference: , DOI: 10.1126/science.1187512