Sensitive viewers, welcome to Planet Earth: Our Loving Home. Scientific experts fear that our world is in the midst of its sixth mass extinction and say its cause is human actions.
In a two-part series we'll explore the challenges facing global biodiversity including the extreme dangers posed by global warming, the necessity of species preservation to ensure the survival of humankind as well as the most effective tools for biodiversity conservation and mitigating climate change.
Janez Potocnik - European Commissioner for Environment (M): Biodiversity, it's an issue which was sometimes too much in the shadow. Also in the shadow of the climate change, which is extremely important, but we should understand that biodiversity is actually the other side of the same coin.
HOST: A study published in the US journal Science examined the biodiversity levels between １９５４ and ２００４ in the UK as measured by approximately ２０,０００ British government-funded naturalists who collected data on the nation's native butterflies, birds and plants.
It was found that between １９７４ and ２００４, ７０％ of the butterfly species saw population declines as did ５４％ of bird species and ２８％ of plant species.
In ２００４, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), which publishes the well-known Red List of Threatened Species estimated in a report entitled 『A Global Species Assessment』 that plants and animals are going extinct １００ to １,０００ times faster than the background rate, or the natural rate of extinction before humans became the primary cause of extinctions, based on fossil records.
In early October ２０１０, Simon Stuart, chair of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature's Species Survival Commission pointed out that prominent Harvard University, USA biologist Dr. EO Wilson's previous estimates that within two decades the rate of species loss could be １０,０００ times the background rate appears to be on the mark.
Commenting on Dr. Wilson's predictions, he stated, 『All the evidence is he's right. Some people claim it already is that ... things can only have deteriorated because of the drivers of the losses, such as habitat loss and climate change, [are] all getting worse."
