
Unless we sort out how we feed the growing human population, thousands of birds and mammals will face the specter of extinction in coming decades, according to a new study published June 1 in the journal Nature.
“With so many people on Earth now, and the numbers increasing by another 3 or 4 billion before we finally level off at our carrying capacity, the impact on extinctions is really great,” said lead author David Tilman.
Hunting for meat, but also for body parts such as rhino horns, is pushing 40-50 percent of threatened species closer to extinction. (Photo by Rhett A. Butler)Tilman, an ecologist at the University of Minnesota, and his colleagues looked at the data for the world’s “threatened” birds and mammals, which they defined as the Vulnerable, Endangered or Critically Endangered animals on IUCN’s Red List of Threatened Species’s Red List of Threatened Species. They also pinpointed where these animals occurred, homing in primarily on the biodiverse tropics in Southeast Asia, sub-Saharan Africa and South America. These regions are also experiencing — or are poised to experience — huge upticks in human populations and wealth.
The team found that 80 percent of these animals owed their threatened status to the loss of their habitat for agriculture. And the killing of animals has brought the survival of 40 to 50 percent of these species into question. Often, that hunting is for meat, but the trade in body parts, such as rhinoceros horn or ivory from elephants, takes a substantial toll.
But the thrust of their work wasn’t just to identify these trends, which Tilman said weren’t all that surprising.
“I’m not unique among ecologists in warning that we are in the midst of an extinction event,” he said in an interview. Study after study has shown that we’re in the midst of a sixth great extinction. “My goal in starting to do these analyses was to try to find pathways toward some kind of a solution.”
Without a concerted effort to stop clearing forests and other wildlife habitats to meet our nutritional needs, the trend toward extinction will continue, he said, especially with an increase 3.2 billion people to Earth’s population by 2060.
“People will win out over any other organism,” Tilman said. “It’s hard for large species to live around humans because humans take up so much of their habitat and break it into little pieces.”
Arabian oryx (Oryx leucoryx) were once eradicated in the wild, but conservation efforts reestablished wild populations, and the animal is now only listed as vulnerable by the IUCN. (Photo by Charlesjsharp / Sharp Photography)
But changes to the way we churn out food for those additional mouths could be hugely beneficial for biodiversity, particularly in developing economies where yields are far below what they could be, the researchers argue in the paper.
“A dollar invested in increasing yields in a typical African country gives $3 to 4 of more food,” Tilman said.
Similarly, habitat disruptions such as water pollution could be avoided in developed countries like the United States if we can better time the applications of “inputs” such as fertilizer. If farmers cut its use by 25 percent, they would still wind up producing about the same amount of food, the authors write.
They advocate the inclusion of these concerns in conservation as a way of stopping the need for habitat destruction, before it cascades into the steep declines in wild animal populations seen recently. And Tilman said turning that trend around will require a shift in how we deal with threatened species.
Currently, he said, “Our actions are viewed as having no impact until we finally push a species to the brink of extinction, which then puts it on our endangered species list, at which time we start paying attention to it,” he said.
California condors (Gymnogyps californianus) has regained a foothold in the wild, thanks to the Herculean efforts of conservationists and scientists, but the authors of a new study in Nature argue we don’t have the resources to do the same thing for thousands of other threatened species. (Photo: Stacy from San Diego)
Scientists have managed to save animals such as the Critically Endangered California condor (Gymnogyps californianus) from extinction, and they’ve successfully reintroduced the Arabian oryx (Oryx leucoryx) back into the wild, which is now listed as Vulnerable by the IUCN. Tilman doesn’t see those sorts of approaches as sustainable for all of the world’s threatened species, however.
“Every [species] that we’ve saved has been a wonderful achievement, but it has taken immense effort,” Tilman said. “We don’t have the money to babysit … tens of thousands of species around the world.”
Limited resources combined with the rates at the number of people is increasing makes the need for solutions especially urgent, he added.
“It’s this last big burst of growth and human influence on the Earth, and what we do now is going to determine forever the kind of world we have,” Tilman said. “It’s crunch time for biodiversity.”
We’re not backing down in the face of Trump’s threats.
As Donald Trump is inaugurated a second time, independent media organizations are faced with urgent mandates: Tell the truth more loudly than ever before. Do that work even as our standard modes of distribution (such as social media platforms) are being manipulated and curtailed by forces of fascist repression and ruthless capitalism. Do that work even as journalism and journalists face targeted attacks, including from the government itself. And do that work in community, never forgetting that we’re not shouting into a faceless void – we’re reaching out to real people amid a life-threatening political climate.
Our task is formidable, and it requires us to ground ourselves in our principles, remind ourselves of our utility, dig in and commit.
As a dizzying number of corporate news organizations – either through need or greed – rush to implement new ways to further monetize their content, and others acquiesce to Trump’s wishes, now is a time for movement media-makers to double down on community-first models.
At Truthout, we are reaffirming our commitments on this front: We won’t run ads or have a paywall because we believe that everyone should have access to information, and that access should exist without barriers and free of distractions from craven corporate interests. We recognize the implications for democracy when information-seekers click a link only to find the article trapped behind a paywall or buried on a page with dozens of invasive ads. The laws of capitalism dictate an unending increase in monetization, and much of the media simply follows those laws. Truthout and many of our peers are dedicating ourselves to following other paths – a commitment which feels vital in a moment when corporations are evermore overtly embedded in government.
Over 80 percent of Truthout‘s funding comes from small individual donations from our community of readers, and the remaining 20 percent comes from a handful of social justice-oriented foundations. Over a third of our total budget is supported by recurring monthly donors, many of whom give because they want to help us keep Truthout barrier-free for everyone.
You can help by giving today. Whether you can make a small monthly donation or a larger gift, Truthout only works with your support.