Wild species relied on by billions at risk, report warns

[Omaha Steve]

Source: AP

By FABIANO MAISONNAVE

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Every day billions of people depend on wild flora and fauna to obtain food, medicine and energy. But a new United Nations-backed report says that overexploitation, climate change, pollution and deforestation are pushing one million species towards extinction.

The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services - or IPBES - report said Friday that unless humankind improves the sustainable use of nature, the Earth is on its way to losing 12% of its wild tree species, over a thousand wild mammal species and almost 450 species of sharks and rays, among other irreparable harm.

Humans use about 50,000 wild species routinely and 1 out of 5 people of the world’s 7.9 billion population depend on those species for food and income, the report said. 1 in 3 people rely on fuel wood for cooking, the number even higher in Africa.

“It’s essential that those uses be sustainable because you need them to be there for your children and grandchildren. So when uses of wild species become unsustainable, it’s bad for the species, it’s bad for the ecosystem and it’s bad for the people,” report co-chair Marla R. Emery of the United States told The Associated Press.



Members of the Deni Indigenous people work during the arapaima fishing season in the Jurua river basin in the Brazilian Amazon, on Sept. 15, 2021. One out of five people in the world depends on wild species for food and income, according to a new UN-backed report. Climate change, pollution and overexploitation, however, have put a million species of plants and animals at risk of extinction. (AP Photo/Fabiano Maisonnave)


Read more: https://apnews.com/article/climate-united-nations-pollution-biodiversity-deforestation-89b98843607312350b54374c6d8764a5

[Marthe48]

1. Humans will eat everything,

denude the planet and then eat each other. Unless some calamity wipes us out.

[2naSalit]

3. Yup.

[paleotn]

5. Can't argue with that....

Maybe Agent Smith was right about one thing.

[Kaleva]

6. It's natures way

[NickB79]

8. Bipedal locusts

Only we also eat lumber, oil, minerals, etc.

[Marthe48]

9. Omniverous bipedal locusts

with the ability to manipulate our environment

[bringthePaine]

2. Soylent Greed

[multigraincracker]

4. We are like yeast in a fruit juice.

Put a tiny amount of yeast in some grape and sugar water and see what happens. The yeast eats, breeds and shits. It shits out alcohol and as it breeds more and more, the shit increases until it reaches around 10%. At that certain point all of the yeast die.

[Stuart G]

7. K and R. Thanks for posting.

[jgmiller]

10. We keep referring to this backwards

People keep saying we have to save the Earth. Earth will be fine, as a matter of fact it's already working on taking care of the problem which is humans. We should say humans need to be saved because from where I sit the earth is going to be just fine by eliminating an awful lot of humans (maybe all of us) and then recovering.