UN Urges World to Slow Extinctions: 3 Each Hour

[Barrett808]

Source: Reuters

UN Urges World to Slow Extinctions: 3 Each Hour
Story by Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent
NORWAY: May 23, 2007

OSLO - Human activities are wiping out three animal or plant species every hour and the world must do more to slow the worst spate of extinctions since the dinosaurs by 2010, the United Nations said on Tuesday.

Scientists and environmentalists issued reports about threats to creatures and plants including right whales, Iberian lynxes, wild potatoes and peanuts on May 22, the International Day for Biological Diversity.

"Biodiversity is being lost at an unprecedented rate," UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said in a statement. ...

"The global response to these challenges needs to move much more rapidly, and with more determination at all levels -- global, national and local," he said. ...

"We are indeed experiencing the greatest wave of extinctions since the disappearance of the dinosaurs," said Ahmed Djoghlaf, head of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity. Dinosaurs vanished 65 million years ago, perhaps after a meteorite struck.

"Extinction rates are rising by a factor of up to 1,000 above natural rates. Every hour, three species disappear. Every day, up to 150 species are lost. Every year, between 18,000 and 55,000 species become extinct," he said.

"The cause: human activities."

Read more: http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/42067/story.htm

[laylah]

1. I was "there"

for the extinction of the DoDo bird. I was only a child but I remember sadness. What is it going to take...?

[Barrett808]

2. Last year's extinction of the Chinese white-fin dolphin make me pretty sad

I always imagine the last surviving member of the species calling out for anyone, but hearing only silence.