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 biodiversity worldwide 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.

Biodiversity, it’s an issue which was sometimes too much in the shadow. Also in the shadow of climate change, which is extremely important, but we should understand that biodiversity is actually the other side of the same coin.

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."

The current cycle of extinctions has been referred to as “the anthropogenic period,” because, unlike the past five mass extinctions, one of which caused the last of the dinosaurs to disappear, the ongoing one is driven by human actions. Pollution from industrial activity, hunting, fishing, animal agriculture, and human population growth are also ongoing threats to biodiversity. The single greatest driver of extinctions is animal agriculture.

The United Nations report “Livestock’s Long Shadow” concludes nearly a third of the Earth’s surface has been taken up for activities related to livestock raising. The majority of human-caused global greenhouse gas emissions are from this industry, making it the chief reason for accelerating climate change.

Enormous amounts of animal waste that severely pollutes land and waterways are generated by factory farm operations. Environmentally-harmful chemical fertilizers and pesticides are used on a tremendous scale to grow animal feed.

Production of livestock, in particular meat products, is an enormously intense one in terms of consumption of resources.

If we seriously want to talk about the questions of biodiversity, of water quality, nitrates pollution, of the CO2 emissions… we have to ask for the help of farmers also.

I take the view that we should be less inefficient; I take the view that we should have less meat in our diets and more vegetables, just as Dr. Pachauri, and I think it makes sense for nature, it makes sense economically, and it actually is a solution to the world food problem.

Today something like 25% of all land is in some form or the other used for cattle and for meat food. So if you could somehow think of more efficient ways of making use of the same land, and using it to produce food for human beings directly rather than food for animals, which are then eaten by human beings, I think that will be a huge favor that we do ourselves. So we should reduce our meat consumption in my opinion, as well.

Humanity is consuming the Earth’s resources faster than they can be renewed. The Global Footprint Network, a US-based environmental research organization, calculated that August 21, 2010 marks what it terms “Earth Overshoot Day,” meaning that up to that point in 2010 humanity had consumed 12 months’ worth of natural resources in under nine months, causing us to lose ecosystem services, or the resources and services that the environment produces that benefit humans such as the air being purified by trees or bees pollinating crops and natural vegetation. In economic terms, this is akin to using up capital rather than living on interest income.

Biodiversity brings us clean water, climate control, disease control, pollination services. These are fundamental building blocks to our life, our human well-being, and they’re declining.

If you look at this chart here that WWF (World Wildlife Fund) produces every year, something called “The Living Planet Report,” there are two really key charts in there. The first one shows our global ecological footprint.

So this is a measure if you divided up everything that we consume and allocated a parcel of land to it, how much land or other resources like atmosphere would be required? And that little dotted line that you see running along the middle, there that represents one Earth. So in 1961 we were consuming about ….. …60% of all of the resources that the Earth can renew within a single year.

Now, come the middle of September (2010) we’ve already used up all of the resources that the planet can provide to us in one year. So, we’re 50% above sustainability at a planetary level. And at the same time, and of course closely linked to that, we are in the midst of one of the great mass extinctions this planet has ever known.

We have lost 30% of the biodiversity on this planet in just 40 years. And in the tropics we’re talking about 60% declines in biodiversity. That just cannot continue. If it does we won’t have anything to eat and we won’t have anything to fuel our economy.

To better understand the challenges we face, over the past four years a diverse group of scientists brought together by the Convention on Biological Diversity, the United Nations Environment Programme and Diversitas, a collaboration of five prominent non-governmental organizations including the Committee on Problems of the Environment, have been evaluating biodiversity’s future in the 21st century.

In a Convention on Biological Diversity report, scientists identify 10 major terrestrial systems of vital importance to biodiversity that are at risk of being pushed beyond the tipping point. These at-risk systems include the Arctic tundra, the Arctic itself, the Mediterranean forest, the Sahel-Sahara region in Africa, marine fish populations, lakes, coastal areas, coral reefs, the Miombo woodlands, marine plankton and the Amazon rainforest.

For example, in the lakes system, the build-up of nutrients, predominantly from agricultural runoff, as well as animal waste and detergents, cause the rapid growth of algae or “algal blooms.” As the algae die off, the oxygen in the water is depleted, making it difficult for aquatic plants and fish to survive, and rendering the water unfit to drink.

In the Amazon system, the widespread destruction of forest to create cattle pastures and fields to grow soybeans for livestock, is reducing regional rainfalls and injuring biodiversity, which has global effects. The low rainfall amounts can cause wildfires and lead to an eventual die-off of large portions of the rainforest along with the animal inhabitants. In turn harsh droughts would occur across much of South America.

On a worldwide scale, the reduction of the Amazon rainforest would further heat up our planet by lessening a major source of carbon dioxide sequestration and further threaten biodiversity. To reverse these troubling trends it is imperative that stakeholders truly understand the value of nature and change policies accordingly.

Forests purify and store water, prevent floods, turn carbon dioxide into clean air, and provide a home for countless species. Mountain glaciers are like giant water towers in the sky, capturing water in the form of snow and then releasing it during the spring and summer months, allowing people to irrigate crops and serving as a significant water source for flora and fauna.

How do we quantify the worth of these precious resources? Until recently, the value of these ecosystem services was not readily calculable. Recognizing this fact, the United Nations Environment Programme formed The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) initiative, led by Dr. Pavan Sukhdev. TEEB’s task is to calculate a value for ecosystems services and then create a series of guidelines for businesses and governments so that they can appreciate the costs and develop strategies for changing environmentally- destructive practices and consumption patterns.

I think the most important thing is to start accounting for the value of nature and to do that not only at that national level, at the local level, but also at the business level. So when we start measuring these values, we really start responding to them. So, as you know, when we, TEEB, worked out that the size of the losses was large, people woke up.

A 2008 study conducted for the European Commission’s Environment Directorate General found that loss of land-based ecosystem services from 2000 to 2010, amounted to €50 billion a year and if biodiversity is not protected, the study projects that between 2000 and 2050 ecosystem service losses will be around €14 trillion.

How governments can use these types of valuations to make wise decisions is illustrated in the following example: New York City, USA was considering spending US$6 to US$8 billion to build a water filtration plant, which would have cost US$300 to US$500 million per year to operate.

Instead, the city invested US$1.5 billion to maintain the Catskill Mountain watershed which had been providing much of New York’s drinking water supply for years, thus saving billions of dollars and protecting nature vulnerable to encroaching development. During an interview with our Supreme Master Television correspondent, Dr. Sukhdev urged our viewers to become aware of the value of biodiversity.

Yes, I would like to ask your viewers this: You have got private wealth and you have got private assets, but you also have public wealth - that public wealth is largely nature - every time your private assets suffer, you call up your private wealth manager; I’m telling you that your public wealth, which is nature, is suffering all the time. How many times have you called up your public wealth manager, your government, your member of parliament, your minister? Please call them up, tell them, “Manage my public wealth better.”

Conscientious viewers, please join us again next Wednesday on Planet Earth: Our Loving Home when we’ll explore the links between climate change and biodiversity loss and discover why changing to an animal-free diet is the most effective tool for protecting our beautiful planet and her inhabitants.

Thank you for your company on today’s program. Coming up next is Enlightening Entertainment, after Noteworthy News. May we all do our best to safeguard our one and only planet.