Biodiversity loss ‘threat to security’
Earth and Leaf Editorial - Biodiversity Loss
This Biodiversity Loss article from the Ecologist is terrifying. Such is the impact of this article we are making it pillar content. The government didnt want you, the public, or us, to see this report.
The government must act. We must work with the European Union very closely on this. In fact we need to rejoin the EU as a matter or urgency and national security.
Read on. The science and fact behind this is absolutely solid.
Extract
It notes that the world is already experiencing impacts including crop failures, intensified natural disasters and infectious disease outbreaks.
READ: George Monbiot – The UK government didn’t want you to see this report on ecosystem collapse. I’m not surprised.
These threats will increase with degradation and intensify with collapse, it states. Without major intervention to reverse the current trend, this is highly likely to continue to 2050 and beyond, it adds.
Extinction
The assessment notes that ecosystem degradation is occurring across all global regions, adding that every critical ecosystem is on a pathway to irreversible loss of function beyond repair.
It cites the fact that average size of monitored wildlife populations declined by 73 per cent between 1970 and 2020.
Populations of vertebrate species have declined by an average of 68 per cent since 1970, while freshwater ecosystem species populations have shown the largest losses, falling 84 per cent in the same period.
“The rate of extinction is tens to hundreds of times higher than the average over the past ten million years. It suggests that a sixth mass extinction may be underway,” it states.
Delayed
The assessment was led by the environment department (DEFRA) and sought expertise across government, including the Ministry of Defence and the Joint Intelligence Committee, which advises on tactical and strategic issues of importance to national interests, primarily in terms of security, defence and foreign affairs.
It was due to be published ahead of COP30, but was delayed. It was finally made public after a Freedom of Information (FoI) request by think tank the Green Alliance.
Ruth Chambers, senior fellow with Green Alliance, who made the FoI request, said that the assessment joins the dots between nature loss, security and the wellbeing of society as a whole.
“It makes for stark reading as it is clear that biodiversity loss is a global threat and that ecosystem degradation is happening everywhere,” she said.
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