Biodiversity crisis

The extinction of species is a natural process, but its speed has accelerated, leading to a biodiversity crisis.  VIDÉOGRAPHIC

Transcript

00:00What do all these species have in common?

00:12They have all gone extinct due to human activities.

00:16Extinction is a natural process, and in fact 99% of the 4 billion species that have existed

00:21on our planet have disappeared.

00:24It is balanced by the evolution of new species, but it is not simply about species going extinct,

00:29but how quickly this is happening.

00:31The IUCN estimates that around 800 species of vertebrates have possibly gone extinct

00:36since the 16th century, with most extinctions occurring since 1900.

00:41This is likely a serious underestimate, as many species have not been formally described.

00:46Even for species not considered threatened with extinction, population declines are frequent.

00:51This biodiversity decline has reached a point where some experts are saying a mass extinction

00:57event is already underway, only the sixth one over the course of Earth's history.

01:02The population of African elephants, for example, has plummeted from around 26 million in the

01:0719th century to around 400,000 today.

01:13Species are disappearing due to humans fragmenting habitats, introducing non-native species,

01:18spreading pathogens and changing the global climate.

01:23Experts suggest that biodiversity declines cannot be reduced if we fail to limit warming

01:27below 2 degrees.

01:29Species are links in ecosystems, and as they disappear, the species they interact with

01:33are likely to vanish as well.

01:35A study shows that a number of ecosystems are already showing evidence of collapse,

01:40such as the Great Barrier Reef in Australia.

01:43Environmentalists warn drastic and immediate conservation actions are necessary to preserve

01:48biodiversity and protect species and their habitats.