UN, WHO warn of dangers to humans as wildlife population declines
Five million people displaced by disasters in 2011
A GRIM picture of the dangers that threaten human survival on Earth and the necessity for all to make the planet healthier top the agenda as the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) officially opens in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, today.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has also renewed its call for a healthier planet, noting that the conference offers the world an important opportunity to both acknowledge, and benefit from the inextricable links between human health and sustainable development.
Meanwhile, experts have expressed fear over mass extinction of wildlife, which endangers billions of humans who depend on them for food and livelihood.
Out of 63,837 species assessed, 19,817 run the risk of following the dodo, the experts said.
At threat are 41 per cent of amphibian species, 33 per cent of reef-building corals, 25 per cent of mammals, 20 per cent of plants and 13 per cent of birds, the update of the prestigious “Red List” said.
Many are essential for humans, providing food and work and a gene pool for better crops and new medicines, it said.
The findings are “a clarion call to world leaders gathering in Rio to secure the web of life on this planet,” said Julia Marton-Lefevre, head of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), which compiles the benchmark.
“Eighty per cent of our calorie intake comes from 12 plant species,” said Prof. Stephen Hopper, head of Britain’s Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, London.
“If we care about the food we eat, and the medicines we use, we must act to conserve our medicinal plants and our crop wild relatives.”
Also, about 14.9 million people were displaced by floods, storms, earthquakes and a tsunami last year, 89 percent of them in Asia, according to an estimate by two Norwegian-backed agencies yesterday.
“The 10 largest disasters in terms of the amount of people displaced all took place in Asia, including multiple events in China, the Philippines, Sri Lanka and Japan,” said Elisabeth Rasmusson of the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC).
“The worst were the prolonged flood disasters in China and Thailand, which together displaced over five million people.”
The estimate, issued on the sidelines of the UN Conference on Sustainable Development in Rio, applies to people who are internally displaced within a country.
But an accurate total of how many of the 14.9 million remain displaced is unclear because data is so sketchy, its authors said.
About 100 heads of state and government are expected to attend the summit-level part of the UN Conference on Sustainable Development, starting in Rio de Janeiro today.
Widely respected, the Red List looks in detail at a small fraction of the world’s known species in order to get a benchmark of biodiversity health.
The UN members pledged under the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to break the rate of loss in species by 2010, but fell badly short of the mark.
After this failure, they set a “strategic plan for biodiversity” under which they vowed to prevent the extinction of “most known species.”
The Red List assigns surveyed species to one of eight categories.
Out of 63,837 species it assessed for its update, 27,937 were in the “of least concern” category or were “near threatened,” and 255 were considered at “lower risk.”
Another 3,947 were critically endangered, 5,766 were endangered and 10,104 were vulnerable, making a total of 19,817 species at threat.
Sixty-three species have become extinct in the wild and 801 have become completely wiped out. The remaining 10,497 species in the survey lacked data to make a judgment.
An American river mollusk called the ovate club shell is among four species that have sadly joined the list of the extinct, according to the Red List experts.
The good news, though, is that two species, including an amphibian called the hula painted frog (Discoglossus nigriventer), which is only found in Israel’s Lake Hula marshes, have been rediscovered.
Species loss is often the result of habitat destruction. But invasive species and, increasingly, the suspected impact of climate change, are also factors.
The report placed the spotlight on reckless exploitation of oceans, lakes and rivers.
“In some parts of the world, up to 90 per cent of coastal populations obtain much of their food and earn their primary income through fishing; yet over-fishing has reduced some commercial fish stocks by over 90 per cent,” the IUCN warned.
It said that 55 per cent of the world’s coral reefs, on which 275 million people depend for food, coastal protection and livelihood, are over-fished.
In Africa, 27 per cent of freshwater fish are now listed as threatened, while in Asia, the important commercial species known as the Mekong herring (Tenualosa thibaudeaui) is vulnerable.
Insects, bats and birds that pollinate crops provide an “ecosystem service” to humans worth more than $200 billion per year.
But 16 per cent of Europe’s endemic butterflies and, worldwide, 18 per cent of bats are at threat.
The Red List is updated each year or more. The 2012 count of threatened species is unchanged from 201, except for birds, where the proportion is 0.5 per cent higher, the IUCN told Agence France Presse (AFP).
The original Rio Declaration of 1992 described “human beings as the central concern of sustainable development... living a healthy and productive life in harmony with nature.”
According to WHO, it is vital that those attending Rio+20 re-affirm this fact, and take concrete action to optimise the interactions between human health and sustainable development.
WHO estimates that 150 million people suffer severe financial hardship each year because they fall ill, use health services and have to pay for them on the spot. Many have to sell assets or go into debt to meet the payments. Also, 100 million people are pushed below the poverty line for these reasons. Lack of access to health services impoverishes people because they cannot work; using health services impoverishes people because they cannot pay.
According to the WHO, protecting people from catastrophic expenditure and ensuring access to essential services through universal health coverage is thus an essential element of any strategy to reduce poverty and build resilient societies. Health has the potential to increase economic development, improve educational opportunities, empower women, reduce impoverishment and foster social cohesion.
The WHO said a healthy environment is a pre-requisite for good health.
A GRIM picture of the dangers that threaten human survival on Earth and the necessity for all to make the planet healthier top the agenda as the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) officially opens in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, today.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has also renewed its call for a healthier planet, noting that the conference offers the world an important opportunity to both acknowledge, and benefit from the inextricable links between human health and sustainable development.
Meanwhile, experts have expressed fear over mass extinction of wildlife, which endangers billions of humans who depend on them for food and livelihood.
Out of 63,837 species assessed, 19,817 run the risk of following the dodo, the experts said.
At threat are 41 per cent of amphibian species, 33 per cent of reef-building corals, 25 per cent of mammals, 20 per cent of plants and 13 per cent of birds, the update of the prestigious “Red List” said.
Many are essential for humans, providing food and work and a gene pool for better crops and new medicines, it said.
The findings are “a clarion call to world leaders gathering in Rio to secure the web of life on this planet,” said Julia Marton-Lefevre, head of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), which compiles the benchmark.
“Eighty per cent of our calorie intake comes from 12 plant species,” said Prof. Stephen Hopper, head of Britain’s Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, London.
“If we care about the food we eat, and the medicines we use, we must act to conserve our medicinal plants and our crop wild relatives.”
Also, about 14.9 million people were displaced by floods, storms, earthquakes and a tsunami last year, 89 percent of them in Asia, according to an estimate by two Norwegian-backed agencies yesterday.
“The 10 largest disasters in terms of the amount of people displaced all took place in Asia, including multiple events in China, the Philippines, Sri Lanka and Japan,” said Elisabeth Rasmusson of the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC).
“The worst were the prolonged flood disasters in China and Thailand, which together displaced over five million people.”
The estimate, issued on the sidelines of the UN Conference on Sustainable Development in Rio, applies to people who are internally displaced within a country.
But an accurate total of how many of the 14.9 million remain displaced is unclear because data is so sketchy, its authors said.
About 100 heads of state and government are expected to attend the summit-level part of the UN Conference on Sustainable Development, starting in Rio de Janeiro today.
Widely respected, the Red List looks in detail at a small fraction of the world’s known species in order to get a benchmark of biodiversity health.
The UN members pledged under the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to break the rate of loss in species by 2010, but fell badly short of the mark.
After this failure, they set a “strategic plan for biodiversity” under which they vowed to prevent the extinction of “most known species.”
The Red List assigns surveyed species to one of eight categories.
Out of 63,837 species it assessed for its update, 27,937 were in the “of least concern” category or were “near threatened,” and 255 were considered at “lower risk.”
Another 3,947 were critically endangered, 5,766 were endangered and 10,104 were vulnerable, making a total of 19,817 species at threat.
Sixty-three species have become extinct in the wild and 801 have become completely wiped out. The remaining 10,497 species in the survey lacked data to make a judgment.
An American river mollusk called the ovate club shell is among four species that have sadly joined the list of the extinct, according to the Red List experts.
The good news, though, is that two species, including an amphibian called the hula painted frog (Discoglossus nigriventer), which is only found in Israel’s Lake Hula marshes, have been rediscovered.
Species loss is often the result of habitat destruction. But invasive species and, increasingly, the suspected impact of climate change, are also factors.
The report placed the spotlight on reckless exploitation of oceans, lakes and rivers.
“In some parts of the world, up to 90 per cent of coastal populations obtain much of their food and earn their primary income through fishing; yet over-fishing has reduced some commercial fish stocks by over 90 per cent,” the IUCN warned.
It said that 55 per cent of the world’s coral reefs, on which 275 million people depend for food, coastal protection and livelihood, are over-fished.
In Africa, 27 per cent of freshwater fish are now listed as threatened, while in Asia, the important commercial species known as the Mekong herring (Tenualosa thibaudeaui) is vulnerable.
Insects, bats and birds that pollinate crops provide an “ecosystem service” to humans worth more than $200 billion per year.
But 16 per cent of Europe’s endemic butterflies and, worldwide, 18 per cent of bats are at threat.
The Red List is updated each year or more. The 2012 count of threatened species is unchanged from 201, except for birds, where the proportion is 0.5 per cent higher, the IUCN told Agence France Presse (AFP).
The original Rio Declaration of 1992 described “human beings as the central concern of sustainable development... living a healthy and productive life in harmony with nature.”
According to WHO, it is vital that those attending Rio+20 re-affirm this fact, and take concrete action to optimise the interactions between human health and sustainable development.
WHO estimates that 150 million people suffer severe financial hardship each year because they fall ill, use health services and have to pay for them on the spot. Many have to sell assets or go into debt to meet the payments. Also, 100 million people are pushed below the poverty line for these reasons. Lack of access to health services impoverishes people because they cannot work; using health services impoverishes people because they cannot pay.
According to the WHO, protecting people from catastrophic expenditure and ensuring access to essential services through universal health coverage is thus an essential element of any strategy to reduce poverty and build resilient societies. Health has the potential to increase economic development, improve educational opportunities, empower women, reduce impoverishment and foster social cohesion.
The WHO said a healthy environment is a pre-requisite for good health.
No comments:
Post a Comment