As some Democrats in the House of Representatives
have come belatedly to realize, the planet is in danger of becoming uninhabitable for other creatures besides man, who has technology to delay his eventual biological demise. His survival in his only planetary home depends on preserving the functioning of planetary cycles, this in turn like most things in Nature, depends on conserving remaining wild ecosystems. Thirteen conservation organizations* have called on governments to accelerate the protection of 30% of Earth from human development and exploitation by 2030. Nearly two-thirds of the Earth’s wetlands and half of all rainforests are already gone. The current rate of extinction for species is 1,000 times higher than the natural one and is expected to accelerate at natural systems collapse. The grim dystopias depicted in science fiction films such as
Blade Runner, and
THX 1138 is becoming a scientific reality.
The call for more protection is organized by the Wyss Campaign for Nature, a billion dollar foundation created by Hansjörg Wyss, a Swiss native now living in Wyoming. It comes as negotiators are meeting in Japan to develop a proposed global conservation plan for consideration at next year's meeting of the Convention for Biological Diversity in Beijing, China. The conservation groups called the UN-wide plan the "last hope to ensure the long-term sustainability of Earth's ecosystems upon which human life depends." The plan must contain four key elements say the groups:
- extinction of species must be prevented;
- recovering species should be allowed to achieve abundance;
- the extent and quality of ecosystems should be stabilized using 2018 as a base year;
- degraded ecosystems should be restored to maintain their functions and environmental services
Wyss said of the initiative, “From the forests that supply our drinking water to the
rugged back country that inspires the imagination of our children,
everyone on Earth has a stake in conserving our planet’s wild places
before they are gone.”
*these are:
BirdLife International
Conservation International
Fauna & Flora International
Global Wildlife Conservation
Nature Conservancy
Natural Resources Defense Council
Panthera
National Geographic
United Nations Foundation
Wildlife Conservation Society
WWF
Wyss Campaign for Nature
Zoological Society of London