If efficient safety measures will not be taken instantly, it’s doable that greater than 1000 species will probably be misplaced within the subsequent two centuries.
The biodiversity disaster, the ever-increasing fee of extinction of animals and vegetation across the planet is without doubt one of the critical international environmental challenges together with the local weather disaster.
In accordance with a latest publication by a bunch of scientists, within the main scientific journal “Science”, within the final 130,000 years, 610 species of birds have disappeared, and human actions are associated to no less than 562 of them, accounting for 92%. Indicative of the worldwide biodiversity disaster is that 27% of extinct species have been misplaced within the final 500 years. Whereas the scientific crew predicts that if efficient safety measures will not be taken instantly, it’s doable that greater than 1000 species will probably be misplaced within the subsequent two centuries.
Because the Deputy Professor of EKPA and Managing Director of OFYPEKA Costas Triantis, who participated within the analysis group, acknowledged: “Within the work we exhibit in probably the most emphatic method that the biodiversity of the planet is threatened and human actions are the primary risk. However along with the variety of species which might be misplaced endlessly, we’re additionally shedding two different elements of biodiversity, the distinct evolutionary historical past of every species and the position it performs inside ecosystems.”
Most of the extinct species have been created tons of of hundreds and even thousands and thousands of years in the past, and their loss erases their distinctive course in time. Scientists have estimated that the 610 extinct species signify a complete of three billion years of evolutionary historical past. On the identical time, many of those species had distinctive types such because the well-known dodo, endemic to the island of Mauritius, or the “large chook” of Madagascar that reached as much as three meters in top and weighed over 600 kilograms. It belonged to the household Aipyornithidae, in any other case referred to as elephant birds, and all species of the household have disappeared. As well as, species carry out particular capabilities, some are scavengers that take away useless organisms, others restrict pests by consuming bugs, and others are vital pollinators. So when a species disappears, its perform throughout the ecosystems can be misplaced, affecting their very construction.
In accordance with Mr. Triantis: “One of the crucial vital steps for the efficient safety of species and the prevention of the biodiversity disaster is the popularity of probably the most threatened species. Within the earlier interval OFYPEKA carried out a project-station for the preservation of the biodiversity of the nation, that of the Pink Listing of Threatened Species of Greece. As a part of the mission, over 140 skilled scientists, utilizing the target standards set by the Worldwide Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), assessed the danger of extinction of hundreds of species in our nation. On this method, the nation has in its palms a strong and internationally acknowledged instrument for the choice and prioritization of safety and conservation actions on the nationwide stage.”
Among the many species evaluated, 336 species of birds are included which have been evaluated by 5 skilled ornithologists. Of those, 13 have been assessed as “Critically Endangered”, i.e. they have been positioned within the highest Hazard Class making them probably the most endangered chook species within the nation. These embody the White-tailed Eagle, the Golden Eagle and the White-tailed Eagle.
