Current estimates suggest there are about 8m species of plants and animals. Around one million are at risk of extinction
of animals and plants are threatened with extinction. Three-quarters of the world’s land and two-thirds of its marine environments have been “significantly altered” by human action. Urban areas have doubled in size in just the past 30 years. More than 85% of wetlands have been lost. More than 90% of ocean fish stocks are being harvested at or above sustainable levels.
The report, based on 15,000 research papers, makes grim reading. More than 40% of amphibians are threatened with extinction, as are a third of marine mammals, a third of sharks and a third of corals . Even 10% of the world’s insects are on the brink.A cynic might suggest that 1m is a suspiciously headline-grabbing figure. It is, indeed, only a little short of the number of animal and plant species currently recognised and described by science. And its accuracy depends on many assumptions.
A consensus is emerging of there being some 8m species of animals and plants . Using figures from the International Union for Conservation of Nature , which publishes an annual Red List of Threatened Species, the report’s authors looked at the proportion of threatened species in well-studied groups of organisms and extrapolated.reckons around a quarter of species are at risk of extinction. Many of the best-studied groups, however, are vertebrate animals, while most animals are invertebrates.
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