UN Chronicle | Passing By: Wildlife Atlas Maps Vital Role of Ecosystems

Passing By
Wildlife Atlas Maps Vital Role of Ecosystems

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Experts estimate that at the current extinction rates of plants and animals, the Earth is losing one major drug every two years, and that less than 1 per cent of the world's 250,000 tropical plants has been screened for potential pharmaceutical applications. The first "World Atlas of Biodiversity: Earth's Living Resources for the 21st Century", launched by the United Nations Environment Programme's World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC), shows how humankind is dependent on healthy ecosystems for all its needs.

Some 80 per cent of people in developing countries rely on medicines based largely on plants and animals. In the United States, 56 per cent of the top 150 prescribed drugs, with an economic value of $80 billion, is linked with discoveries made in the wild.

The first comprehensive and accessible map—based view of global issues on biodiversity, the Atlas provides a wealth of facts and figures on the importance of forests, wetlands, marine and coastal environments and other key ecosystems. It is the best current synthesis of the latest research and analysis by UNEP-WCMC and the conservation community worldwide. It also highlights humankind's impact on the natural world. During the past 150 years, humans have directly impacted and altered close to 47 per cent of the global land area, the Atlas reports.

Under one bleak scenario, biodiversity will be threatened on almost 72 per cent of the land area by the year 2032. The Atlas reveals losses of biodiversity are likely to be particularly severe in South-East Asia, the Congo basin and parts of the Amazon. As much as 48 per cent of these areas will be converted to agricultural land, plantations and urban areas, compared with 22 per cent today, suggesting wide depletions of biodiversity.

The Atlas outlines some of the broad ecological relationships between humans and the rest of the material world, and summarizes information on the health of the planet. More specifically, it shows how "wilderness areas" are on the retreat, as roads and urban centres spread into places like the Amazon basin, the Arctic and desert zones.

By using maps to show the location of biodiversity, UNEP-WCMC draws together the work of researchers across the world who have identified particularly rich or vulnerable areas, including "hot spots" and "eco-regions"—these are regions where it is particularly important to identify development paths that can serve humankind without reducing nature's capital.

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