One Million Species Heading Towards Extinction

KOMPAS/ISMAIL ZAKARIA

Members of the West Sumatra Police display the pelt of a Sumatran tiger while another stuffed tiger stands in the background on a Tuesday in April (4/23/2019). The pelt and the stuffed Sumatran tiger were seized as evidence during the arrest of two suspects, S, 39, and A, 43, in Bukittinggi city, West Sumatra, on the previous Friday (19/4/2019).

Biodiversity is shrinking rapidly and reaching alarming levels in many countries, including Indonesia. Human activity is the main cause of destruction to ecosystems.

JAKARTA, KOMPAS — Global environmental quality has decreased at unprecedented levels to threaten life, with 1 million animal and plant species headed towards extinction. Indonesia, an ecologically fragile archipelagic country, is among the most vulnerable to loss of biodiversity.

The 2019 Global Assessment Report from the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), under coordination with the United Nations, warns that the extinction rate across many species has affected the sustainability of life for all creatures on earth, including humans. An executive summary of the report, compiled by 450 scientists from 100 countries over three years, was published on May 7. The report was based on 15,000 scientific studies.

The report says that native species on land, in freshwater ecosystems and in oceans have declined at least 25 percent since 1900, with the degradation rate skyrocketing in the past 40 years. Some 680 vertebrate species have gone extinct, such as the Pinta giant tortoise of the Galapagos Islands that went extinct in 2012.

The health of ecosystems on which we and all other species depend is deteriorating more rapidly than ever. We are eroding the very foundations of our economies, livelihoods, food security, health and quality of life worldwide

More than 9 percent of all mammalian species cultivated for meat and agriculture went extinct in 2016, with at least 1,000 other species under threat. Forty percent of all amphibian species, 33 percent of coral reefs and marine mammals, 14 percent of birds and at least 10 percent of insects are threatened with extinction.

With such proportions, scientists estimate that 1 million of around 8 million species of animals and plants in existence – 75 percent of which are insects – are under the threat of extinction. “The health of ecosystems on which we and all other species depend is deteriorating more rapidly than ever. We are eroding the very foundations of our economies, livelihoods, food security, health and quality of life worldwide,” said IPBES chair Sir Robert Watson.

Unsustainable practices of resource exploitation will, in the end, turn against us and our efforts to fulfill global food demand. The loss of pollinating insects will reduce crop production and result in up to US$577 billion losses, and soil degradation will result in a 23 percent decrease in global harvests.

Ecological imbalance will also lead to the proliferation of expansive species, such as plant pests. Pressures on food production will be made worse by the lack of freshwater and the destabilized climate. “This loss [of ecosystems and biological diversity] constitutes a direct threat to human well-being in all regions of the world,” said Josef Settele, one of the report’s authors.

Based on thorough analysis of available evidence, the top five causes of biodiversity loss are conversion of land and marine areas for the interest of food production, direct exploitations of organisms, climate change, pollution and the proliferation of invasive foreign species.

KOMPAS/IRMA TAMBUNAN

Officers from the Batanghari Regency Health Office check noise levels and the gas content of the air at an illegal oil extraction site within the area of state-owned oil company PT Pertamina in Sultan Thaha Syaifuddin Forest Park, in Bajubang district, Batanghari regency, Jambi, on a Tuesday in March (3/26/2019). Illegal extraction has caused environmental damage and threatened people\'s health. Law enforcement and integrated policies to get rid of the problem are urgently needed.

The report also cites that farming and agricultural activities, which occupy 33 percent of all land, have polluted 75 percent of all freshwater springs. The agricultural industry, including large-scale plantations, also contributes 25 percent of total greenhouse gas emissions – the largest proportion of emission from human activity. The emissions are produced mainly from the use of chemical fertilizers and land conversion.

Without comprehensive changes to global economic, social and political systems to resolve this crisis, the IPBES report projects that the loss of biodiversity will continue and reach a critical point in 2050.

Indonesia’s vulnerability

University of Indonesia conservation biology professor Jatna Supriatna said that the Indonesian government and people should pay serious attention to the IPBES report. “We have an incredibly high biodiversity. However, we are also highly vulnerable,” he said in Jakarta on Tuesday (5/7/2019).

KOMPAS

Activities of an open-pit coal mine almost completely overwhelm Mulawarman village, Kutai Kartanegara, East Kalimantan, in November (11/20/2018). Many villagers have left and sold their lands to mining companies because the village is flanked by coal mines that have damaged the environment and the sources of clean water and there is almost no space for farming. They are often disturbed by explosives set off by miners that destroy hills and land.

Jatna said that, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) Red List, the number of Indonesian endemic species on the brink of extinction was among the highest in the world. Islands have a high level of ecological endemicity. However, due to limited habitat, island species were also highly vulnerable. “The smaller the island, the more fragile the species,” he said.

The distribution of species on islands was limited and different from the continental ecology in Africa or the Americas. He said only 10 Bali mynas were left in the wild, only 50 Javanese rhinoceros were left in Ujung Kulon – their sole habitat, and only around 100 Sumatran rhinos remained. “If these animals go extinct in their habitat, we will not be able to find them anywhere else. This is different from animals in Brazil. If [those animals] go extinct in Brazil, we may still be able to find them in Argentina,” said Jatna.

DOK OIC

Members of the Human Orangutan Conflict Response Unit (HOCRU) team of the Orangutan Information Center rescue a juvenile orangutan from an oil palm plantation in Subulussalam, Aceh, in March (3/20/2019).

He said that the greatest threat to biodiversity in Indonesia were mining and land conversion, especially into large-scale oil palm plantations. The loss of a species was certain to disrupt the natural balance that had been established over thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of years. This would lead to a proliferation of plant pests and other problems. (AIK)