全世界100万个物种因人类遭受灭绝威胁

One million of the planet's eight million species are threatened with extinction¹ by humans, scientists warned Monday in what is described as the most comprehensive assessment² of global nature loss ever.

 

科学家们本周一（5月6日）发布了迄今为止最全面的一份全球自然损失评估报告，报告警告称，地球上800万个物种中有100万个正因人类而遭受灭绝威胁。

 

Their landmark³ report paints a bleak⁴ picture of a planet ravaged⁵ by an ever-growing human population, whose insatiable consumption is destroying the natural world.

 

The global rate of species extinction "is already tens to hundreds of times higher than it has been, on average, over the last 10 million years," according to the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem⁶ Services (IPBES), a UN committee, whose report was written by 145 experts from 50 countries.

 

Shrinking habitat, exploitation of natural resources, climate change and pollution are the main drivers of species loss and are threatening more than 40% of amphibians⁷, 33% of coral reefs and over a third of all marine⁸ mammals with extinction, the IPBES report said.

 

"The health of ecosystems⁹ on which we and all other species depend is deteriorating¹⁰ more rapidly than ever," said Sir Robert Watson, IPBES chair, adding that "transformative change" is needed to save the planet.

 

The report comes six months after the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warned that the world has less than 12 years to avoid catastrophic levels of global warming.

 

Just as with climate change, humans are the main culprits of biodiversity damage, altering 75% of Earth's land and 66% of marine ecosystems since pre-industrial times, according to the report.

 

The report emphasizes the disastrous¹¹ impact of population growth and rising demand. It notes that the world's population has more than doubled (from 3.7 to 7.6 billion) in the last 50 years, and gross domestic product per person is four times higher.

 

More than a third of the world's land and 75% of freshwater supplies are used for crop or livestock¹² production, it noted¹³.

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