NATURE FORUM WORLDWIDE

[Daan Vreugdenhil]

Currently, the protected areas in the UNEP-WCMC protected areas database cover between 10 and 12% of the world's land mass. The information is very inaccurate, in terms of size and IUCN protection category. Only about half of the area consists of fully protected areas in the IUCN categories I-IV. In the other half, forest exploitation can and usually does take place. So if of the other half, 50% would be effectively protected, somewhere between 7.5 and 9% would be protected. However, I estimate that less than 50% of the protected areas in developing and transition countries has any field staff at all, while the areas with field staff are understaffed by at least 50%. Expecting effective protection of even 7.5% seems rather optimistic.

When applying Arrhenius' (1921) "species-area curve", while assuming (1) the optimistic value z=.15 (Dobson 1996) to the protected land mass; (2) a land cover protected effectively and durably of about 9%; (3) all ecosystems represented using a fine distinction in ecosystems (Vreugdenhil et al. 2003) and (4) stable ecological conditions, one may expect the conservation of 70% of the terrestrial species of the planet and according to this model the loss of 30%.

However, for island situations, the z factor increases, thus lowering the value of the species-area relationship . As many protected areas will be surrounded by large areas of agricultural land, they are becoming islands for many populations of species. There are no detailed ecosystem maps for most developing countries and representativeness evaluations have only taken place for a few countries in the world. The protected areas of the world are not including all ecosystems of the world, and therefore the species area curve is too optimistic and a solid representativeness evolution for all developing and transition countries is direly needed.

There are no scientifically sound models to predict the effect of climate change on the survival of species. Changing ecological conditions resulting from climate change however, will impact the survival strategies of many species and particularly in the world's most diverse ecosystems, the humid tropical forests. There, the impact may be far reaching if climate change would intensify and prolong the dry seasons. If this would happen, more trees would seasonally shed their leaves, and the sun would penetrate forest levels that previously would never be exposed to direct sunlight. Many species would not be able to survive such conditions for prolonged periods of time. As there are no models to predict the effects, we may only speculate the impact on the species survival on earth, but whatever the outcome, its effect will be accumulated to the minimum species loss of 30%. For the sake of having some kind of idea how much we are talking about, I dare to speculate that another 10 - 20 % may be lost. Yet another 10% - 20 may be lost due to inadequate ecosystem representation and ineffective protection of the protected areas. Under the most optimistic scenario the world would lose 40% of its species, while under a more pessimistic scenario, the world may lose as much as 70% of its species. All this is expected to take place in the twenty first century and depending on the outcome of the measures to be taken, this will be among the most severe or even the single most severe species extinction event in the existence of the planet. As this entire extinction event is due to human actions and at least a part of it is due to political inaction, should this extinction event be considered "specicide"?.
Tell us what you think.
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Dr. Ir. Daan Vreugdenhil
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