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The Road to Nowhere...

May 19, 2008

Posted by Andrew Wetzler in Saving Wildlife and Wild Places

Tags:
biodiversity, extinction, wildlife

Well, so much for a happy Endangered Species Day.  Today, the BBC reports that, according to the Zoological Society of London, the world's wildlife populations have declined twenty-five to thirty-percent in the last thirty years. The editor and lead author of the report call the rate of declines "completely unprecedented in human history" and fixes the blame squarely on humanity's shoulders.

Meanwhile, according to Agence France-Presse, a European Union and German research report is about to be released that concludes that the destruction of plants and animals around the world is costing the global economy 3.1 trillion dollars a year.  Actually, the economic cost may be some reason for hope.  Money has a strange way of clarifying the mind and changing behavior.

 Extinct.  Carolina parakeets (Conuropsis carolinensis) by John James Audubon (1833)

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Andrew Wetzler
Andrew Wetzler
Director, Endangered Species Project
Chicago
I grew up in New York City but spent my summers canoeing and hiking in...
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