Refleksi : Di NKRI, mungkin dalam waktu tak lama lagi harimau Sumatera, bergitupun gajah, orang utang akan punah seperti juga burung Kakatua di pulau Ceram [Maluku], belum lagi dihitung jenis tumbuh-tumbuhan yang sangat berguna, misalnya untuk kebutuhan hidup sehari-hari pendudk pedesaan dan pengobatan. Hal in bisa terjadi karena diadakan perusakan hutan untuk mengejar keuntungan bagi segelintir kaum berkuasa dan konco-konco mereka dalam dan luarnegeri.
http://www.theage.com.au/world/experts-warn-species-loss-is-unnatural-20100308-psre.html Experts warn species loss is unnatural JULIETTE JOWIT, LONDON March 9, 2010 FOR the first time since the dinosaurs disappeared, animals and plants are being driven to extinction faster than new species can evolve, an expert on biodiversity has warned. Conservation experts have already signalled that the world is in the grip of the ''sixth great extinction'' of species, driven by the destruction of natural habitats, hunting, the spread of alien predators and disease, and climate change. However, until recently it had been hoped that the rate at which new species were evolving could keep pace with the loss of diversity. But that point had almost certainly been crossed, said Simon Stuart, chairman of the Species Survival Commission for the International Union for the Conservation of Nature - the body that officially declares species threatened or extinct. ''Measuring the rate at which new species evolve is difficult, but there's no question that the current extinction rates are faster than that; I think it's inevitable,'' Dr Stuart said. He was speaking before the release of two reports this week on the state of wildlife in Britain and Europe. The conservation union created shockwaves with an assessment of the world's biodiversity in 2004 that calculated the rate of extinction had reached 100 to 1000 times that suggested by fossil records before humans. No formal calculations have been published since, but conservationists agree the rate of loss has increased. Dr Stuart said it was possible dramatic predictions of experts such as Harvard biologist E. O. Wilson that in two decades the rate of loss could reach 10,000 times the background rate - which is 10 species in every million per year - could be right. ''All the evidence is he's right,'' Dr Stuart said. ''Some people claim it already is that . things can only have deteriorated because the drivers of the losses, such as habitat loss and climate change, are all getting worse. But we haven't measured extinction rates again since 2004, and because our current estimates contain a tenfold range, there has to be a very big deterioration or improvement to pick up a change.'' Extinction is part of the evolution of life, and only 2-4 per cent of the species that have ever lived on Earth are thought to be alive today. However, fossil records suggest that for most of the planet's 3.5-billion-year history, the rate of loss may have been about one in every million species each year. Only 869 extinctions have been formally recorded since 1500, because scientists have described fewer than 2 million of an estimated 5-30 million species around the world, and have assessed the conservation status of only 3 per cent of those. The global extinction rate is extrapolated from the rate among known species. In this way, the conservation union calculated in 2004 that the loss had risen to 100-1000 per million species each year, a situation comparable to the five previous mass extinctions - the last of which was when the dinosaurs were wiped out about 65 million years ago. Critics, including the author of The Skeptical Environmentalist, Bjorn Lomborg, argue that because such figures rely on so many estimates, the margins of error make them unreliable. Dr Stuart said the union's figure was likely to be an underestimate of the problem, because scientists are reluctant to declare species extinct even when they have sometimes not been seen for decades, and because few of the world's plants, fungi and invertebrates have been formally recorded and assessed. Swedish scientists had already warned that anything over 10 times the background rate of extinction was above the limit if the world was to be safe for humans, Dr Stuart said. ''No one's claiming it's as small as 10 times. The only thing we're certain about is the extent is way beyond what's natural and it's getting worse.'' Many more species are discovered every year than are recorded extinct, but these ''new'' plants and animals are existing species found by humans for the first time. The union has also listed 208 species as ''possibly extinct''. Nearly 17,300 species are considered under threat. These include one in five mammals assessed, one in eight birds, one in three amphibians, and one in four corals. Later this year, the Convention on Biological Diversity is expected to formally declare that a pledge by world leaders in 2002 to reduce the rate of biodiversity loss by 2010 has not been met, and to agree on new, stronger targets. GUARDIAN
