Earth's species feel the squeeze
May 23, 2005
If we continue with current rates of species extinction, we will have no chance of rolling back poverty and the lives of all humans will be diminished.
That is the stark warning to come out of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA), the most comprehensive audit of the health of our planet to date.
Organisms are disappearing at something like 100 to 1,000 times the "background levels" seen in the fossil record.
Scientists warn that removing so many species puts our own existence at risk.
It will certainly make it much harder to lift the world's poor out of hardship given that these people are often the most vulnerable to ecosystem degradation, the researchers say.
The message is written large in Ecosystems and Human Well-being: the Biodiversity Synthesis Report.
It is the latest in a series of detailed documents to come out of the MA, a remarkable tome drawn up by 1,300 researchers from 95 nations over four years.
The MA pulls together the current state of knowledge and in its latest release this week focuses specifically on biodiversity and the likely impacts its continued loss will have on human society.
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