Freshwater species suffer most as extinctions rise

Alister Doyle, Reuters 11 Oct 09;

OSLO (Reuters) - Creatures and plants living in rivers and lakes are the most threatened on Earth because their ecosystems are collapsing, scientists said on Sunday.

They urged the creation of a new partnership between governments and scientists to help stem extinctions caused by humans via pollution, a spread of cities and expanding farms to feed a rising population, climate change and invasive species.

Governments globally had aimed to slow the losses of all species by 2010.

"Massive mismanagement and growing human needs for water are causing freshwater ecosystems to collapse, making freshwater species the most threatened on Earth," according to Diversitas, an international grouping of biodiversity experts.

Extinction rates for species living in freshwater were "four to six times higher than their terrestrial and marine cousins." Fish, frogs, crocodiles or turtles are among freshwater species.

"The 2010 target isn't going to be met," Hal Mooney, a professor at Stanford University, who is chair of Diversitas, told Reuters. Diversitas will hold talks among more than 600 experts in Cape Town, South Africa, from October 13-16 to discuss ways to protect life on the planet.

World leaders agreed at a 2002 Earth Summit in Johannesburg to achieve by 2010 a "significant reduction in the current rate of loss of biological diversity."

"Changes to ecosystems and losses of biodiversity have continued to accelerate ... Species extinction rates are at least 100 times those in pre-human times and are expected to continue to increase," Georgina Mace of Imperial College in London, vice-chair of Diversitas, said in a statement.

Dams, irrigation and climate change that is set to disrupt rainfall are all putting stresses on freshwater habitats. Canals allow plants, fish and other species and diseases to reach new regions.

FRANCE TO RUSSIA

"You can travel from France to Russia without going to the sea any more," Klement Tockner of the Leibnitz Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries, told Reuters. "Mixing is much faster and more severe than in marine and terrestrial habitats."

By 2025, some experts predict that not a single Chinese river will reach the sea except during floods, with tremendous effects for coastal fisheries in China, Diversitas said.

Tockner said freshwater ecosystems covered 0.8 percent of the Earth's surface but accounted for about 10 percent of all animals.

The United Nations has also turned skeptical about achieving the 2010 goal after long saying that it was too early to judge.

Ahmed Dhjoghlaf, head of the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity, said in February that: "On 1 January 2010, we will not be able to say that we significantly reduced the rate of biodiversity loss."

In Cape Town, experts will try to work out better goals for slowing extinctions, by 2020 and beyond.

Anne Larigauderie, executive director of Diversitas, urged creation of a new panel for monitoring extinctions modeled on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), whose findings are approved both by scientists and governments.

"There should be a new IPCC for biodiversity and ecosystem services," she told Reuters.

New fears for species extinctions
Emilio San Pedro, BBC News 11 Oct 09;

Scientists have warned of an alarming increase in the extinction of animal species, because of threats to biodiversity and ecosystems.

The threats are posed by pollution, climate change and urban spread.

The comments come two days ahead of a meeting of the Diversitas group of global experts on biodiversity in the South African city of Cape Town.

Group members say world leaders have failed to honour commitments on reducing the loss of biodiversity.

Rivers warning

These latest warnings are stark.

They point to statistics that demonstrate that the extinction rates of animal species are much higher than had been predicted only a few years ago.

The worst affected - according to the scientists from the Diversitas group of biodiversity experts - are freshwater species like fish, frogs, turtles and crocodiles.

The scientists warn that these freshwater species are becoming extinct six times faster than their terrestrial and marine cousins.

Some of the group's experts predict that by 2025 not a single river in China will reach the sea - except during floods.

The members of Diversitas are meeting from Tuesday in Cape Town to come up with new goals to slow down the extinction rates.

They lay the blame on these increased threats to animal species on world leaders.

The leaders, they say, have failed to implement the policies needed to make good on their commitments - drafted at the Earth Summit in Johannesburg seven years ago - to significantly reduce the loss of biodiversity by 2010.

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