FACT 1  (biodiversity loss) Due to human activities, many of the world's great biological systems are in a state of collapse, and tens of thousands of animal and plant species are becoming extinct every year. Even if we stop now, the planet is expected to take about 10 million years to recover.

Some quotes to illustrate
Human beings have become 100 times more numerous than any other land animal of comparable size in the history of the planet. We appropriate an astonishing 40 percent of all the solar energy captured in land plants, sharply reducing the resources available to other species. Extinctions today are estimated at 1000 times the natural rate, about 27000 a year, leading to a massive species loss similar in scope to the five major such periods in the last 500 million years. But unlike previous huge die-offs caused by climate, geology or stray meteors, the current crisis is the result of human activity. After each of these previous periods, it took life roughly 10 million years to establish a comparable level of diversity, albeit with a very different mix of species each time. Life will regenerate no matter what we do, but at a pace of 10 million years, time is not on our side. (Restoring the Earth, 1997, Kenny Ausubel, p 43).

"Extinction does not simply mean the loss of one volume from the library of nature. It means the loss of a loose-leaf book whose individual pages, were the species to survive, would remain available in perpetuity for selective transfer and improvement of other species." Professor Thomas Eisner, Cornell University (Gaia Atlas of Planet Management, 1993, p 158)

(A bit old, but still valid…) "The worst thing that can happen in the 1980s is not energy depletion, economic collapse, limited nuclear nuclear war, or conquest by a totalitarian government. As terrible as these catastrophes would be for us, they can be repaired within a few generations. The one process ongoing in the 1980s that will take millions of years to correct is the loss of genetic and species diversity by the destruction of natural habitats. This is the folly that our decendants are least likely to forgive us." Professor O. Wilson, Harvard University. (Gaia Atlas of Planet Management, 1993, p 159)

A study in 1975 showed that 60% of the Cape Floral Kingdom, which has the highest known concentration of plant species in any region around the world, had been destroyed in the previous 150 years. Now we have less than about one third remaining, and the pressures on it are extreme (Mossie Basson of Cape Nature Conservation, quoted in ENN article Poachers Plunder South Africa's Floral Treasures, 4 Sept 2000).

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