http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/science...ss.extinction/


Scientists agree world faces mass extinction
August 23, 2002 Posted: 11:43 AM EDT (1543 GMT)


Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument in the Sonoran Desert of Arizona,
pictured here, has never been grazed and remains in pristine
condition.








By Gary Strieker
CNN
(CNN) -- The complex web of life on Earth, what scientists call
"biodiversity," is in serious trouble.
"Biodiversity includes all living things that we depend on for our
economies and our lives," explained Brooks Yeager, vice president of
global programs at the World Wildlife Fund in Washington, D.C.
"It's the forests, the oceans, the coral reefs, the marine fish, the
algae, the insects that make up the living world around us and which
we couldn't do without," he said.
Nearly 2 million species of plants and animals are known to science
and experts say 50 times as many may not yet be discovered.

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Yet most scientists agree that human activity is causing rapid
deterioration in biodiversity. Expanding human settlements, logging,
mining, agriculture and pollution are destroying ecosystems, upsetting
nature's balance and driving many species to extinction.
There is virtual unanimity among scientists that we have entered a
period of mass extinction not seen since the age of the dinosaurs, an
emerging global crisis that could have disastrous effects on our
future food supplies, our search for new medicines, and on the water
we drink and the air we breathe. Estimates vary, but extinction is
figured by experts to be taking place between 100 to 1,000 times
higher than natural "background" extinction.
At the first Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro 10 years ago, world
leaders signed a treaty to confront this crisis. But its results have
been disappointing. According to Yeager, "It hasn't been a direct kind
of impact that some of us had hoped for."
One hundred eighty-two nations are now parties to the Convention on
Biological Diversity. The United States is the only industrial country
that has failed to ratify it. But there is wide agreement that the
treaty has had virtually no impact on continuing mass extinction.
The treaty is more like a political statement than a plan of action,
setting very broad goals instead of real targets, and leaving it to
national governments to decide how to reach them.
Many developing countries in tropical areas, where the most species of
plant and animal can be found, wanted nothing in the treaty that could
limit their freedom to exploit natural resources.
So the treaty was framed as a political compromise to balance three
principles: conservation, sustainable development and fair sharing of
the benefits of biodiversity.
In the process, critics say, the operation of the treaty has lost its
focus. It's been distracted from science and conservation by other
issues, such as "biopiracy" - determining who profits from genetic
resources -- and "biosafety" -- controlling trade in genetically
modified organisms, such as seeds, with built-in pesticides. Many
pressure groups have forced governments to address the issues of
"biopiracy" and "biosafety."
Debbie Barker, co-director of the California-based International Forum
on Globalization, says, "You cannot really separate preservation and
sustainability and conservation and biodiversity without addressing,
for example, important new technologies like genetic engineering or
genetic modification."
That may be true, but many scientists and conservationists say almost
all the work at the treaty's conferences has been focused on these
hot-button issues, including "biopiracy" and "biosafety", during the
past decade. The result, they say, has been a lost opportunity to
address the real crisis.
The member nations still stand by the treaty, but at a conference
earlier this year at The Hague they issued a statement admitting
humans are still destroying biodiversity at an unprecedented rate.