“The study is the first global analysis of human impacts on local biodiversity. It is a major collaboration between the Natural History Museum, United Nations Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC), and British universities.
“Scientists submitted data from more than 70 countries and considered 26,593 species, adding more than 1.1 million records to the PREDICTS (Projecting Responses of Ecological Diversity In Changing Terrestrial Systems) survey database.
“The team’s figure of a 14 per cent drop in species in local ecosystems is a global average. So local biodiversity in some areas is still quite intact, but others – including Western Europe – have had losses of 20-30 per cent.” Source: www.nhm.ac.uk
GR: Making projections requires assumptions about what we are going to do. Reviews of this research try to be optimistic by emphasizing positive projections. However, if we make the most likely assumption that we will do nothing substantive to stop global warming, deforestation, and human population growth, the red areas will spread. As stated earlier, everyone that cares needs to begin making local efforts to preserve biodiversity.
