FACTBOX - Biodiversity and fish deals at the Earth Summit
Date: 05-Sep-02
Country: SOUTH AFRICA
Many leading scientists and the United Nations itself have painted a gloomy picture of the planet's future. Some experts say up to 50 percent of the world's species could be wiped out by human activity in this century.
Here are some key points about deals struck at the World Summit on Sustainable Development and the Earth's ecosystems:
* Nearly 200 nations agreed in the plan to achieve a "significant reduction" in the current rate at which species are being wiped out, recognising that poor countries would need extra financial and technical help to achieve the goal.
* Greenpeace said it was a watered down target as it only aims to slow the rate of extinction of rare species, not halt it. Greenpeace said U.N. governments agreed in April to stop the rate of species loss, although with no deadline.
* At Johannesburg, states agreed to restore fish stocks where possible no later than 2015 and to establish marine protected areas by 2012, moves welcomed by green groups.
FORESTS
According to the United Nations, some 90 million hectares (222 million acres), or 2.4 percent of the planet's forests - an area larger than Venezuela - was destroyed in the 1990s.
Many of the trees felled were in tropical rain forests in South America, Africa and southeast Asia and the United Nations reckons nine percent of the world's tree species are endangered.
While tropical forest ecosystems cover less than 10 percent of the earth's surface, they may contain up to 90 percent of the world's species, the U.N. Global Environment Outlook said.
Some experts say global forest cover has actually been relatively stable, increasing to 30.89 percent of the planet's land area in 1994 from 30.04 percent in 1950. But much of the growth has been in temperate forests in North America and Europe, not in the biologically richer rain forests.
An EU study last month showed tropical forests were disappearing more slowly than previously thought. It reckoned the average loss of rainforest was 0.43 percent a year against 0.5 percent estimated previously.
ENDANGERED SPECIES
Scientists have named 1.75 million species. Many believe most species, including insects, plants and fungi, have not yet been identified and that there could be as many as 14 million.
Some 52,000 vertebrates - mammals, amphibians reptiles, birds and some fish - have been identified. A main threat is habitat destruction caused chiefly by logging and the clearing of lands for farming, industry or human settlement.
Climate change linked to the greenhouse effect is another. It has been implicated in the bleaching of coral reefs and the decline of amphibians in tropical forests.
Pollution, dams and disasters such as oil spills have also taken a toll on wildlife, while over-hunting, over-fishing and trade in animal body parts has had devastating consequences.
According to a U.N. report, 12 percent, or 1,183 types of bird and 1,130 mammal species, a quarter of the total, are considered to be endangered.
North American bison were all but killed off by white settlers in the 19th century. The northern right whale was hunted to near extinction and now numbers only around 300.
Numerous fisheries collapsed during the later part of the 20th century, including Canada's Grand Banks cod fishery, which closed a decade ago with the loss of 40,000 jobs.
Africa's elephant populations were significantly depleted by poachers involved in the global ivory trade, which was banned in 1989, stemming the slaughter of the majestic beasts.
Currently, the illicit "bushmeat" trade and illegal logging activities in central and west Africa are pushing many primates to the brink of extinction, including humanity's closest living relatives, the gorillas and chimpanzees.
Some animals have benefited from humans. Coyotes, confined originally to the grasslands of western North America, rushed to fill the niche opened up by the slaughter of wolves by farmers.
