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Andrew Wetzler’s Blog

The Road to Nowhere...

Andrew Wetzler

Posted May 19, 2008 in Saving Wildlife and Wild Places

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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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Switchboard is the staff blog of the Natural Resources Defense Council, the nation’s most effective environmental group. For more about our work, including in-depth policy documents, action alerts and ways you can contribute, visit NRDC.org.

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