Text: Read the following article:
Respond to the article and address the following questions in
paragraph form. The paragraph requires at least six
well-constructed sentences to fully answer the
questions.
The article states that 4,400 species of animals have declined
by 68% since 1970. Discuss and describe
three ways humans may have caused this decline.
Describe one success story from the
article.
A 'Crossroads' for Humanity: Earth's Biodiversity Is
Still Collapsing
Countries have made insufficient progress on international goals
designed to halt a catastrophic slide; a new report found.
The world is failing to address a catastrophic biodiversity
collapse that not only threatens to wipe out beloved species and
invaluable genetic diversity but endangers humanity's food supply,
health, and security, according to a sweeping United Nations
report issued on Tuesday.
When governments act
to protect and restore nature, the authors found, it works. But
despite commitments made 10 years ago, nations have not come close
to meeting the scale of the crisis, which continues to worsen
because of unsustainable farming, overfishing, burning of fossil
fuels, and other activities.
"Humanity stands at
a crossroads," the report said.
It comes as the
devastating consequences that can result from an unhealthy
relationship with nature are on full display: A pandemic that very
likely jumped from bats has upended life worldwide, and wildfires,
worsened by climate change and land management policies, are
ravaging the American West.
"These things are a sign of what is to come," said David Cooper,
an author of the report and the deputy executive secretary of
the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity, the
global treaty underlying the assessment. "These things will only
get worse if we don't change course."
The report looked at a decade of efforts by national
governments. In 2010, after painstaking scientific work and arduous
negotiation, almost every country in the world signed on to 20
goals under the convention to staunch the biodiversity
hemorrhage.
At the time, the
science was already clear: Human activity was decimating animals
and plants across the planet, causing a wave of extinctions and
throwing ecosystems so out of balance that the domino effects
threatened humans themselves. The agreement, with a deadline of
2020 for the new goals, was a hard-won diplomatic triumph.
The report, which assesses progress on the 20 goals, has found
that the world is doing far too little.
"Some progress has been made, but it's not good enough," said
Elizabeth Maruma Mrema, the leader of the U.N. convention.
As with climate change, scientific alarms on biodiversity loss
have gone largely unheeded as the problem intensifies.
Last year, an exhaustive international
report concluded that humans had reshaped the natural world so
drastically that one million species of animals and plants were at
risk of extinction. This year, the World Economic Forum's
annual report identified biodiversity loss, in addition to
climate change, as one of the most urgent threats, saying that
"human-driven nature and biodiversity loss is threatening life on
our planet." Last week, a respected index of animal life
showed that, on average, the populations of almost 4,400 monitored
mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish had declined by 68
percent since 1970.
At the global level, only six of the biodiversity convention's
20 targets were partially achieved, and none were fully
achieved.
The destruction of habitats such as forests, mangroves, and
grasslands was not cut in half. Overfishing did not decrease.
Governments did not stop subsidizing fossil fuels, fertilizers, and
pesticides that are contributing to the biodiversity crisis.
Indeed, the report estimates that governments around the world
spend $500 billion per year on environmentally harmful initiatives,
while total public and private financing for biodiversity came to a
fraction of that: $80 billion to $90 billion.
"Many governments, within their ministry of environment, have a
lot of ambition for biodiversity," said Anne Larigauderie, an
ecologist who attended the conference in 2010 that adopted the 20
targets. "But they don't have enough power compared to the other
ministries: agriculture, transportation, energy."
Dr. Larigauderie manages the Intergovernmental
Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, an
independent intergovernmental organization that provides science on
biodiversity loss. Even national leaders who say they understand
the crisis, she said, find it difficult to resist lobbies,
short-term interests, and their desire for re-election.
Of 196 countries,
167 submitted national reports on their efforts. The United States
did not because it was not a party to the treaty.
The biggest driver
of biodiversity loss on land is habitat destruction and
degradation, mainly because of farming. At sea, the biggest problem
is overfishing. Climate change will play an increasing role as its
effects intensify over the coming years. And the twin crises of
climate change and biodiversity loss are inextricably linked. For
example, since trees soak up and help store carbon, clearing
forests intensifies climate change, while restoring them helps
mitigate it.
"By investing in nature, not only can we reduce extinctions, we
can help address the climate issue," Mr. Cooper said. "We can also
have healthier landscapes and healthier people."
Despite the overall failure, the report highlights areas of
progress around the world, bright spots showing that people have
the power to protect and restore nature, not just destroy it.
Conservation efforts have prevented an estimated 11 to 25 bird and
mammal extinctions over the last decade; without these actions,
researchers calculated, the number most likely would have been two
to four times as high.
"If you put in place
the policies, they do work," Mr. Cooper said.
To praise and inspire, the report is peppered with success
stories big and small. Working with scientists, 20 million Chinese
farmers decreased the amount of nitrogen they used on crops like
rice and wheat while simultaneously increasing yields. Indonesia,
Liberia, and Gambia cracked down on illegal foreign fishing vessels,
improving their fish stocks to the benefit of local fishermen.
Guatemala rewarded landowners who restored forests with native
species.
But such actions must be scaled up significantly. The scale of
the crisis and the sheer number of humans living on the planet mean
that conservation alone will not be enough. Instead, the report
said, societies will have to transform how they produce and consume
food and other goods. One of the targets addressed this directly:
Governments, businesses, and stakeholders at all levels were to take
steps, at least, to achieve plans for sustainable production and
consumption. Three-quarters of the countries reported back on their
progress; of those, only one-tenth are on track, the report
found.
"Our economic and financing systems are all screwed up," said
Robert Watson, a former chairman of two high-profile panels, one
on climate change at the United Nations and the other
on biodiversity. "We use gross domestic product as a measure
of economic growth. It completely ignores nature. It completely
ignores human well-being. And so it's a very limited concept."
Without transformational change, the report said, all humanity
will be affected, with Indigenous people and the poor bearing the
worst effects.
Scientists say food supplies are threatened by ecosystem
collapse, climate change, the decline in pollinators, and soil
degradation from unsustainable farming. Conflict follows food and
water scarcity.
The report calls for eight urgent transitions in the way we use
lands and oceans, grow our food, eat, build our cities, manage our
freshwater, and more. For example, we must eat less meat and fish,
bring nature into cities, and quickly stop burning fossil fuels.
With these bold changes, it is not too late to slow and
ultimately reverse this crisis, the report found.
"We still need this planet to live on," Ms. Mrema said. "And we
still need this planet for our children.
