German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Thursday called for a “trend reversal” in the dramatic loss of plant and animal species.
“There is nothing to sugarcoat. The rapid loss of biodiversity has catastrophic consequences for all of us worldwide,” Merkel said.
She added that Germany was committed to halting species extinction by the end of the decade.
Merkel was speaking at the launch of a preparatory event for the UN Biodiversity Conference, which is set to take place in Kunming, China, in October.
The UN is hoping the conference will yield a pledge from countries to put 30% of the world’s marine and land areas under protection by 2030.
Around 50 countries, including Germany and the other Group of Seven nations, have already committed to that goal.
Currently only about 17% of earth’s landmass and 7.5% of ocean areas are designated protected areas.
How bad is the biodiversity situation?
Scientists believe the planet is in the midst of its sixth mass extinction event, which began some 12,000 years ago and is accelerating. Currently, the species extinction rate is estimated to be 100 to 1,000 times higher than natural background extinction rates.
According to the World Biodiversity Council, more than 1 million animal and plant species could be gone by the end of the century.
Experts say the biggest threats facing these species is habitat loss induced by human activities such as deforestation, pollution, overhunting and fishing.
Hopes for ‘ambitious’ targets in Kunming
Merkel said she hoped the UN conference in October would deliver “an ambitious global framework” and also help mobilize private and public resources to back conservation efforts.
She pointed out that Germany had been contributing €500 million ($596 million) a year to protect forests and other ecosystems since 2013, and had also pledged to boost annual support for climate protection and adaptation from €4 billion to €6 billion.
The global pandemic has shed light on the importance of protecting biodiversity. Scientists stress that the destruction of animal habitats has helped create situations in which humans come into closer contact with other species, making it possible for diseases like the coronavirus to jump the species barrier.
The health of humans, animals and nature are “inextricably linked,” said German Environment Minister Svenja Schulze, who also took part in the preparatory event on Thursday.
The UN Biodiversity Conference in Kunming was canceled last year because of the pandemic. It is still not clear whether this year’s event will take place in-person or virtually.
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Beasts that could come back from extinction
No fear of a T-Rex sequel
Five films on, Jurassic Park still has us captivated by the idea of humans coming face-to-face with our planet’s most terrifying former inhabitants. But the fantasy of resurrecting a dinosaur from DNA in the belly of an amber-trapped mosquito is a long way from reality. Leading de-extinction scientists say making use of genetic material more than a million years old won’t be possible.
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Beasts that could come back from extinction
And then there were two
Since the last male northern white rhino — a 45-year-old called Sudan — died earlier in 2018, elderly females Najon and Fatu are the last of their kind. But scientists hope that embryos in deep freeze could bring the “functionally extinct” species back from the edge. They were created in vitro from the sperm of a deceased male northern white and the eggs of the closely related southern white.
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Beasts that could come back from extinction
Not so dead after all?
When the dodo — a fatally trusting and tasty bird — disappered from Mauritius in the 17th century, few believed mankind could extinguish the life of an entire species. Only after 19th century naturalist Georges Cuvier proved extinction was possible did the dodo became a symbol of that destructive power. Now, the hunt is on for dodo DNA, in the hope we may also prove our power to resurrect.
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Beasts that could come back from extinction
Fragile life
By the time the last Pyrenean ibex Celia died in 2000, scientists had already gathered and frozen her tissue cells. Three years later, a goat gave birth to Celia’s clone, created by injecting her DNA into a goat’s egg. In fact, dozens of hybrid eggs were implanted. Only seven animals became pregnant, and one carried to full term — and the resurrected ibex survived only a few minutes after birth.
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Beasts that could come back from extinction
Passage from the past
This is Martha, the last passenger pigeon, who died in 1914. The plump North American birds were a favorite for the plate, and hunting combined with deforestation wiped them out even as conservationists warned of their senseless demise. Revive & Restore, an organization that promotes “de-extinction,” sees the passenger pigeon as the perfect model project to show resurrection science’s potential.
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Beasts that could come back from extinction
Numbat mother
European colonists in Australia put a bounty on the head of the thylacine, or Tasmanian tiger, a marsupial apex predator. The last known member of the species died in Hobart Zoo in 1936. Now, scientists have decoded the animal’s entire genome from a joey preserved in ethanol, and hope to insert its genes into the DNA of its closest surviving relative, a diminutive marsupial called the numbat.
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Beasts that could come back from extinction
Pleistocene Park
The most impressive species with any chance of making a comeback is the woolly mammoth, whose closest living relative is the Asian elephant. Scientists at Harvard University say the ice-age giants could play a role in slowing permafrost melt and, therefore, climate change. But their “Pleistocene Park” concept would need 80,000 animals to have any real impact — pure science fiction, say critics.
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Beasts that could come back from extinction
One heck of a cow
The auroch once roamed the length and breadth of Eurasia, but hunting and habitat loss wiped them out close to 400 years ago. Yet their descendents — domesticated cattle — live on, and “back-breeding” programs have tried to resurrect the auroch by selecting for characteristics of the wild ancestor. An early German attempt resulted in Heck cattle, which have been reintroduced to parts of Europe.
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Beasts that could come back from extinction
Meet the ancestors
We once shared the planet with other human species, like the Neanderthal, with whom we even interbred. Many of us still carry Neanderthal DNA. But we are also prime suspects in their extermination. What would it be like to confront the relations we once wiped out? Scientists are growing homo sapiens-Neanderthal hybrid brain matter in the lab to examine the differences between them and us.
Author: Ruby Russell
nm/msh (Reuters, AFP, dpa)