IUCN Report Paints Grim Picture of Conservation

A recent survey has brought to light something all of us knew deep inside us – life on earth is vanishing, and vanishing rapidly. The World Conservation Union (IUCN), in its annual report released Wednesday, said life on earth was fast becoming extinct, and the trend would continue, disastrously, if people did not do anything about it soon.

The IUCN has compiled a Red List of Threatened Species. This list contains some really scary data, as far as the question of preservation of species is concerned. The Red List says one out of every four mammals is in serious trouble. Mammals are not the only animals at risk.

The list also says one out of every three amphibians also faces the same trouble. What is more worrisome than the numbers themselves is the fact that conservation efforts have not been very successful in altering the trend so far.

Birds and plants also find mention in the list compiled by IUCN. The numbers mentioned in the list overall present a grave picture. About 10,000 birds find their names on the list, out of which 1, 217 are in serious danger of going extinct. Along with the birds are included 12, 000 plants, of which 8, 447 are listed as threatened species.

The survey by IUCN said of a total of 41,415 species, about 16,306 would become extinct over the coming years if we did not seriously pursue conservation efforts. Conservation efforts would bear fruit only if we had in place effective strategies and the ability to implement these strategies.

Among mammals, on the list of endangered species is one of our close relatives, the great ape. It seems almost like a harbinger of things to come, a message that if we did not take good care, we could find Homo sapiens figuring on that list some day.

In fact, the great ape had been moved a couple of notches higher on the endangered list, from Endangered to Critically Endangered. This was after a study discovered recently that almost 70 percent of the Western Lowland Gorillas had perished so far, thanks to two main factors – the Ebola virus and the meat market.

Another mammalian relative on the Critically Endangered list was the Sumatran Orangutan. The Bornean Orangutan was one notch lower, in the Endangered list. One animal that has become officially extinct is the Yangtze dolphin, a unique species of dolphin found in the Yangtze River. The cause is fishing and industrial pollution.

The only species to have come down on the endangered list is the Mauritius Echo Parakeet. Conservation efforts have paid off in this case, with the species being removed from the Critically Endangered list to the Endangered list.

The list of species in peril goes on and on, and the numbers seem endless. The head of the Species Programme at IUCN, Jane Smart, said our existence and biodiversity were two intertwined entities, which made it vital we ensured biodiversity was protected to prolong our own existence.