‘The Numbers Are Just Horrendous.’ Almost 30,000 Species Face Extinction Because of Human Activity

Overfishing, hunting and land development have pushed more species closer to extinction, according to a new report. The Red List report by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) found that 27% of the more than 105,000 species the organization has analyzed are at risk of extinction, a total of 28,338 different species. IUCN also found that no species on its list have shown any sign of improvement since it was last updated in December 2018. “Things are not getting better, they are getting worse,” Craig Hilton-Taylor, head of the IUCN Red List unit, tells TIME. The Red List places the 105,732 species of plants and animals that it analyses into different categories: the number of species that are considered threatened fall into the categories of vulnerable, endangered and critically endangered. However, there are an additional 6,435 species that fall into the near-threatened category. The endangerment of species is not only a critical issue for animal and plant life but can also have a detrimental impact for humans. “The future of humanity — food, fresh water, drinking water, clean air — is all dependent on maintaining the biodiversity around us,” Hilton-Taylor says. “We can’t afford to lose any of these species.” Hilton-Taylor says that while updating the the Red List, scientists usually find species that can be removed from a high risk category because of conservation efforts — but this time around...
Source: TIME: Science - Category: Science Authors: Tags: Uncategorized Environment onetime World Source Type: news