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 Editorials | Environmental | September 2007 
IUCN's Red List Expands
 Sherry Mazzocchi - The Ticker
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The World Conservation Union (IUCN) announced that the threat to animal and plant life is greater than ever before. The 2007 Red List of Threatened Species tallies 41,415 species, of which 16,306 are in danger of extinction. The Red List is widely regarded as the most definitive assessment of species at risk.
One in eight birds, one in four mammals and one in three amphibians are threatened. The IUCN reports that 99 percent of the species is threatened by human activities. Loss and degradation of habitats are the leading causes.
The majority of species at risk are found in Australia, Brazil, China and Mexico. Most of the birds, mammals and amphibians on the list are found in tropical broadleaf forests. Commercial bush meat trade and the Ebola virus have reduced the population of the Western Lowland Gorillas. The decline of the Sumatran Orangutans is due to illegal and legal logging and forest clearance for palm oil plantations.
Corals, newly added to the list, are endangered due to the effects of El Niño and climate change. The Yangtze River Dolphin, or Baiji, is possibly extinct. Its habitat was degraded by over-fishing, river traffic and pollution. Large vultures, found in Asia and Africa, have been decimated due to a reduction in grazing animals, drugs that are used to treat livestock and collisions with power lines. In addition, 723 North American and Mexican reptiles were added to the list, including freshwater turtles and snakes.
"The list reminds us of how little attention we pay to the species extinction crisis in our daily lives," said Baruch College environmental science Professor Jason Munshi-South. "An obituary of an actress or minor political figure will make front page news around the world, but the extinctions of even large, charismatic species such as the Baiji are quickly forgotten, if mentioned at all."
Munshi-South said that more science education could change the fate of the threatened species. "The numbers of species on earth, major patterns of biological diversity and the major factors [that] influence ecosystem diversity should be known by any educated person," he said. "Ecological literacy will be key to shrinking The Red List."
The Red List's findings are published every four years. The IUCN concedes that their numbers are a conservative estimate because the Red List has analyzed only three percent of the world's approximately 1.9 million species. |
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