Human greed increases threatened species until 22,400 – HOME

A bluefin tuna Pacific Aquarium in Monterey (USA). / Randy Wilder

Imagine that a the animal begins to devour them one by one to the 7.200 million humans inhabit the planet, and about 2050 are only 720,000 people on Earth. The predator would have destroyed all of humanity except for a population the size of Seville. And that’s what happened to the pufferfish from China, an animal endowed, after millions of years of evolution, venom and the ability to swell to frighten their enemies, but they were unable to defeat a new threat: Fashion sashimi . Overfishing to supply the Japanese market has declined 99.99% population over the past 40 years, according to the latest edition of the Red List of Threatened Species, released today.

The catalog produced since 1964 by the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN), includes more than 76,000 species assessed, of which almost 30%, more than 22,400 are threatened with extinction, 4,635 of them critically endangered. “The growing market for power is putting unsustainable pressure on many species,” said Jane Smart, director of group IUCN Biodiversity in the report at the World Parks Congress in Sydney. “The Red List is a call to action. We are extremely concerned, because what we are doing is not enough, “he said Smart.

The human greed has also led to bluefin tuna Pacific ingredient of sushi and the sashimi , to pass into the category of “vulnerable to extinction”. The, mostly Asian, catch these fish fishery as juveniles before they reproduce, and IUCN estimates that the population may have been cut by 33% in the last two decades. The eel farming industry in Asia, which now caters to American eels after exhausting the Japanese, has also forced classify this species as threatened

An American eel, threatened by overfishing. / CC Robertson

Smart has called for strict limits on catching these and other species are imposed and requested that immediate steps are in place to protect their habitats. Half of the 2,000 species whose status was first evaluated it in the Red List is in theory protected areas. “Only 25% of protected areas are well managed and that is a very serious problem,” Smart recalled.

The number of endangered species in the Red List is growing. In 2013 they were just over 21,000. In 2004, were around 15,000. And in 1996 barely exceeded 10,000. In Spain there are 552 endangered species, more than double that in neighboring countries such as France and Portugal.

The Chinese cobra is a good example of the failure in the conservation of some natural sanctuaries. Lives in Chinese stocks Ailaoshan and Dawesihan plus in Kenting National Park in Taiwan, but its population has fallen in the past 20 years due to hunting to supply copies to the kitchens of Hong Kong, where he is considered a . deli

<"middle" class = div>

The Chinese cobra is considered a delicatessen in Hong Kong / Skink Chen

The new Red List also finds the total extinction of two species by habitat destruction. The snail Plectostoma sciaphilum only lived in a limestone hill Bukit Panching in Peninsular Malaysia. In 2007, a cement company bulldozed the hill to remove the stone and conch definitely been missing from the face of the Earth. It has also gone the planet’s largest earwig, giant earwig Saint Helena, eight inches insect living on the British island of the same name, more than 2,000 kilometers off the coast of Angola. Urban development, rats and invasive invertebrate species boat arrivals eliminated this overhead-sighted for the last time in 1967.

With these two extinctions, and are 832 species whose extinction has been found in the half-century history of the Red List, although the real number is “much higher” as alert Craig Hilton Taylor, head of listing. Other 69 species have become extinct in the wild and survive only in captivity.

The president of the Committee for the Survival of Species IUCN, Simon Stuart, has called “a proliferation of conservation efforts.” The expert pointed out that, when resources and political will, it gets reverse the critical state of the species, as has happened with the Golden Infant Nature Reserve, in the Colombian department of Tolima. This protected area was established in 2008 to shield a fragment of rainforest in which two species of poison dart frogs discovered living in the last decade. His condition is recovering

.

Most earwig world is taken for extinct from the face of the Earth

“Experts warn that the threatened species that are poorly represented in protected areas are declining twice as fast as those that are well represented. Our responsibility is to increase the number of protected areas and ensure effective management “, has argued in a statement IUCN Director General, Julia Marton-Lefèvre.

The new list shows hundreds of species that are suffering the destruction of their habitats, including 66 species of chameleons. The giant horned chameleon blade, exclusive of the East Usambara Mountains, Tanzania, has been listed as threatened with extinction, although concentrated in Amani Nature Reserve. This theoretically protected area is being affected by deforestation to create agricultural crops, mining for coal and logging for timber.

The Red List is the most comprehensive catalog that exists on species threatened the planet, but is far from exhaustive, as only evaluates 76,000 of the 1.7 million described species.