Group: World failing to halt biodiversity decline

Governments are failing to stem a rapid decline in biodiversity that is now threatening extinction for almost half the world’s coral reef species, a third of amphibians and a quarter of mammals, a leading environmental group warned Thursday.

“Life on Earth is under serious threat,” the International U-nion for Conservation of Nature said in a 155-page report that describes the past five years of a losing battle to protect species, natural habitats and geographical regions from the devastating effects of man.
“Biodiversity continues to decline and next year no one will dispute that,” said Jean-Christophe Vie, the report’s senior editor. “It’s happening everywhere.”

Vie told The Associated Press that biodiversity threats need to be highlighted and combatted, even at a time when many world leaders are preoccupied by economic recession and financial instability. Unlike markets and debts, animal extinction is an irreversible element of today’s “wildlife crisis.”

He urged governments to usher in major changes to society, such as reducing energy and overall consumption, redesigning cities and reassessing the environmental consequences of globalization — producing goods in one part of the world and sending them thousands of miles to be sold.

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