Red List species loss also threatens people

Red List: Species loss threatens more and more human existence

06/21/2012

Environmentalists have presented the so-called Red List of Threatened Animal and Plant Species shortly before the start of the UN Summit Rio + 20. The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) reported nearly 20,000 endangered species on Tuesday. In total, nearly 64,000 animal and plant species were examined. Thus, every third species is threatened with extinction. But not only the species themselves are endangered but also the existence of many people, as the researchers report.

„Sustainability is a matter of life and death for the people of our planet "
Threatening many animal and plant species also endangers human existence, as they are the source of numerous medicines, food and clean water, environmentalists say. „Sustainability is a matter of life and death for the people of our planet, "warned IUCN boss Julia Marton-Lefèvre. „A sustainable future can not be achieved without preserving biodiversity - the animal and plant species, their habitats and their genes. "This not only affects nature but also the people who depend on it.

According to the Red List, 33 percent of reef-building corals, 25 percent of mammals, 41 percent of amphibians, 13 percent of birds and one-fifth of plant species are currently threatened. The impact this has on people is only apparent at second glance. For example, coral reefs are a highly complex ecosystem of their own, providing protection to many marine inhabitants. With the death of the corals, a chain reaction is triggered, sooner or later other reef dwellers die as well. The biggest enemy of corals is the temperature, because they live in symbiotic community with small algae from which they feed. However, as algae are very sensitive to temperature and produce toxins at high temperatures, global warming deprives corals of their livelihoods. They die. Another problem is the acidification of the oceans. A large part of man-made carbon dioxide emissions also reaches the seas. Since the corals consist of limestone scaffolds, the carbon dioxide causes the skeletons to dissolve or their formation is prevented.

Like corals, many animal and plant species are depleted of their livelihoods through human intervention. Paradoxically, humans harm not only species but themselves as well. According to the IUCN, even in developed countries like the US, half of the most prescribed medications are based on substances derived from wild plants or animals. More than 70,000 different plants would be used in traditional or conventional medicine. Amphibians are also indispensable in the development of new drugs, as many basic substances are extracted from the skin of frogs. A single adult deciduous tree produces about as much oxygen that it is sufficient for ten people. Maybe it needs examples like these to understand that man can only survive in harmony with nature.

Red list is constantly growing
Among the new red-listed animals are the squid Sepia apama, the callus Callicebus caquetensis and the black iguana Ctenosaura nolascensis. The Southeast Asian cobra Naja siamensis has been upgraded from threatened to severely threatened.

Among the positive messages of the environmentalists was the rediscovery of a frog considered extinct in Israel. Discoglossus nigriventer (white dotted Israeli discolor) now has status „strongly threatened with extinction“ on the Red List.

„Most of the reasons for the loss of biodiversity are economic, "explains Simon Stuart, head of the IUCN Species Survival Commission, that climate change and introduced species are difficult or even irreversible, as exemplified by the Amazonian stingy water hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes ), which spreads in African waters and causes a massive economic damage of around one hundred million dollars per year.The drinking water supply, transport and fisheries are particularly affected.

Image: Maren Beßler