One fifth of vertebrates face extinction – But conservation does work

Study of more than 25,000 threatened species says it's not all bad news

December 2010: One fifth of all vertebrates are at risk of extinction. It is a shocking statistic, but one that is masking the encouraging news that conservation work worldwide is drastically slowing the decline of many species, according to a new wide-ranging report.

The Impact Of Conservation On The Status Of The World's Vertebrates, one of the largest ever collaborative studies into biological conservation, says: ‘One-fifth of species are classified as Threatened, and we show that this figure is increasing. On average, 52 species of mammals, birds and amphibians move one category closer to extinction each year. However, this overall pattern conceals the impact of conservation successes, and we show that the rate of deterioration would have been at least one-fifth as much again in the absence of these.'

Inadequate against threats to biodiversity
The study also concludes that current conservation efforts are inadequate to counteract agricultural expansion, logging, overexploitation, and invasive species - the main causes of biodiversity loss.

‘History has shown us that conservation can achieve the impossible, as anyone who knows the story of the white rhinoceros in southern Africa is aware,' says Dr Simon Stuart, Chair of IUCN's Species Survival Commission and an author on the study. ‘But this is the first time we can demonstrate the aggregated positive impact of these successes on the state of the environment.'

Also among the 174 authors of the report was Professor H. Resit Akçakaya, who, as chair of the International Union for Conservation of Nature's (IUCN) Red List Standards and Petitions Subcommittee, helped develop guidelines for the applying rules while assessing threatened species.

The article pulls on data from 25,780 verterbrate species on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.

Regarding his work, Dr Akçakaya commented: ‘I contributed to the development of guidelines for assessing threatened species. This paper is a synthesis of these kinds of assessments for the world's vertebrates.'


http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/conservation-success.html