During
the recent international Climate Adaptation Futures Conference that
ended Thursday, July 1 in Brisbane, Australia, United Nations
Environment Program (UNEP) Chief Scientist Dr. Joseph Alcamo urged for
further tangible goals to protect biodiversity loss.
His call
followed a vote by UNEP nations earlier in June to establish a new
intergovernmental platform on biodiversity and ecosystems, in light of
the gravity of such issues as they are linked strongly to human
survival. In the face of alarming declines of animal and plant species
worldwide due to human activities and climate change, Dr. Alcamo added
that an ideal strategy would be to focus on setting limits for human
impacts
to entire ecosystems, rather than attempting to protect individual species based on their chance for recovery.
He
suggested, for example, reducing land-use changes such as deforestation
to protect habitats. According to Dr. Clive McAlpine, environmental
researcher at the University of Queensland, land clearing through
deforestation has been observed to have a large impact on Australia’s
biodiversity.
Prof. Clive McAlpine – Researcher in landscapeology, environment and climate change, University of Queensland (M):
When you look at landscapes like in Western Australia, Southwestern
Australia, New South Wales and Victoria and then Queensland, that
amounts to some areas having less than 10% or even 5% of native
vegetation remaining. There’s very extensive clearing in those areas and
that’s had major impacts on biodiversity and also for catchment
hydrology and for feedbacks on climate.
VOICE: Professor McAlpine
explained that the foremost reason for Australia’s rapid and dramatic
removal of trees has been for agriculture and livestock grazing.
Prof. Clive McAlpine (M): Trees
compete with grasses for moisture and nutrients. As a result, farmers
have gone out to larger areas to convert that into new crops and
pastures.
VOICE: To save the environment, Professor McAlpine
emphasized that it is vital to restore wildlife habitats and address
such land use issues along with climate change.
Prof. Clive McAlpine (M):
If we focus beyond climate change and greenhouse gases without looking
at land use, including beef cattle grazing and other forms of livestock
grazing, then we’re still going to have problems further down the track.
So we need to address them all collectively and try and get to some
sort of sustainable land use in the future.
VOICE: Many thanks,
Professor McAlpine for your insights on the interrelatedness of
deforestation, biodiversity loss and livestock grazing. May wise
government policies and individual actions together prevent a further
demise of the remaining ecosystems on which we all depend.
In an
interview published in the September 2009 edition of The House Magazine,
Supreme Master Ching Hai addressed the very issue of how livestock
agriculture is impacting the ecosphere.
Supreme Master Ching Hai: On
land, meat consumption is responsible for vast regions being cleared
for grazing crops that are fed to livestock. With these activities
essentially robbing our biodiversity, there has been an alarming rise in
the disappearance of plants and animals. Besides the land being cleared
for livestock raising,the livestock itself causes further biodiversity
loss due to potent greenhouse emissions,
which accelerate global warming.
The
answer to all this, you know is quite clear. Stop the meat consumption.
Stop it yesterday. This will eliminate the so-called need for livestock
raising, which will immediately return immense amounts of land to
natural sustainability or to natural growing methods that allow
biodiversity to be replenished. This is the way we need to go, and fast.
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/endangered-species-can-be-saved-says-un-scientist-20100630-zmvf.htmlhttp://www.nccarf.edu.au/conference2010/http://www1.voanews.com/english/news/environment/Australian-Summit-to-Boost-Global-Defenses-against-Climate-Change-97383239.html http://www.gpem.uq.edu.au/clive-mcalpine
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