Is the world able to save a million species?

Changing the lives of amphibians and corals: a case study of the Indonesian mountain toad (Leptophryne cruentata)

Time is not very long. Stuart Pimm is the head of Saving Nature and says species are being driven to extinction about 1,000 times faster than they were created through evolution.

Despite doubts, Naeem is certain that scientists and advocates will keep going. He says that there would be real changes if it were possible for the countries to decrease biodiversity loss.

Among the most at-risk groups are amphibians and reef-forming corals. A global assessment shows that more than 40% of amphibians are threatened with extinction1, including the critically endangered bleeding toad (Leptophryne cruentata), which lives in Mount Gede Pangrango National Park in Java, Indonesia.

The toads were thought to have been extinct until 2000, when a team of herpetologists spotted some of them. The researchers found that the amphibians were sick with a disease that has decimated global amphibian populations. Climate change may be making life harder for a toad that got its name from its splatter-like spots. Warm weather can stimulate fungal outbreaks and shift the timing of behaviours, such as the toads’ breeding season, making the amphibians vulnerable.

Rock solid: How biodiversity and resilience affect the interactions between species and ecosystems in a rainforest and a mangrove forest in Central New York City

The ocean has absorbed more than 90 percent of the world’s excess heat over the last 30 years, it provides habitat for a wealth of unique species and is a vital buffer against the climate crisis which billions of people rely on.

It’s difficult to predict, because doing so requires knowledge of which species are present in a particular ecosystem, such as a rainforest, and what functions they have, says Shahid Naeem, an ecologist at Columbia University in New York City. Much of that information is not known. However, scientists have shown3 that ecosystems with less biodiversity are not as good at capturing and converting resources into biomass, such as happens when plants capture nutrients or sunlight used for growth.

Neither are less-diverse ecosystems as good at decomposing and recycling biological materials and nutrients. For example, studies show that dead organisms are broken down, and their nutrients recycled, more quickly when a high variety of plant litter covers the forest floor4. Ecosystems with low biodiversity also have low resilience — they are not as able to bounce back after a perturbation or shock, such as a fire, as more-diverse systems are, Naeem says.

He adds that if parts of the system are lost, it won’t function as efficiently or as robust. “The science behind that is rock solid.”

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-04370-4

Proceedings Intergovernmental Framework on Marine Biodiversity and Sustainable Use (ICEM) Conference [Scenarios 2009], Buenos Aires, Italy, April 3-March 3

Clean water and diseases from spreading to humans can sometimes be prevented by ecosystems. When species are lost, these services deteriorate, Kusrini says. Many pests, such as mosquitoes and roaches, are considered pests by the Amphibians, who eat insects. Studies have shown a rise in cases of malaria — spread by mosquitoes — in areas in Central America where amphibian populations have collapsed5. When insect numbers rise and people start using more pesticides to kill them, you will know.

The framework has a proposal to cut the introduction of alien species in half. Invasive predator species such as cats and rats are thought to be responsible for more than half of the extinctions of animals.

It is vital that nations agree on a framework with some quantifiable targets, so that progress can be measured, and that countries can be held accountable if they don’t reach their targets. Pimm is afraid that they will produce a long list of waffle. We need something that quantification is possible.

The newly adopted framework says protected areas should be created “recognizing and respecting the rights of indigenous peoples and local communities, including over their traditional territories.”

Human rights advocates are skeptical of the 30×30 target on social media, calling it a big green lie. Survival International posted on Facebook that it was a huge land grab that would force millions of Indigenous people off their ancestral lands.

Nevertheless, large conservation groups celebrated the adoption of the new framework. Andrew Deutz, a director at The Nature Conservancy, says if more people got to know the pace, severity and long-term implications of biodiversity loss, the eyes of the world might have been focused on Montreal over these two weeks.

The new framework is just a starting point; now comes the even harder task of making progress on the ground — all while attempting to avoid the harms committed in the name of conservation in the past.

“To return to World Cup metaphors – it really did feel like a championship game heading into extra time in knife-edge fashion,” Deutz said. The next phase of hard work for the global biodiversity community already beckons.

The goal of the U.N. meetings, running through March 3, is to produce a unified agreement for the conservation and sustainable use of those vast marine ecosystems. The talks, formally called the Intergovernmental Conference on Marine biodiversity Areas Beyond National jurisdiction, resumed without a final treaty.

In about 30 percent of the ocean, damaging human activities like commercial fishing and oil gas drilling could be banned or limited.

Boris Worm says that the ocean is the life support system for our planet. “For the longest time, we did not feel we had a large impact on the high seas. But that notion has changed with expansion of deep sea fishing, mining, plastic pollution, climate change,” and other human disturbances, he said.

Mechanism for establishing marine protected areas: Implications for oceans governance in the next two-nucleon and multi-satellite negotiations

The aim of the talks is not to actually designate marine protected areas, but to establish a mechanism for doing so. “The goal is to set up a new body that would accept submissions for specific marine protected areas,” Clark said.

“This is our largest global commons,” said Nichola Clark, an oceans expert who follows the negotiations for the nonpartisan Pew Research Center in Washington, D.C. “We are optimistic that this upcoming round of negotiations will be the one to get a treaty over the finish line.”

Marine biologist Simon Ingram at the University of Plymouth in England says there’s an urgent need for an accord. “It’s a very pressing time for this, not only because of the deep-sea mining and the lack of knowledge about life on the ocean floor, but also because we need to be able to survey and understand what lives on the ocean floor.”

Nearly 200 countries have agreed to a legally-binding treaty to protect marine life in international waters, which cover around half of the planet’s surface, but have long been essentially lawless.

“We need a legally binding framework that will allow countries to work together to achieve their goals”, said Jessica Battle, an expert on oceans governance.

“I believe that this treaty is like a second chance for the ocean,” said Gladys Martínez, the executive director of AIDA, a group focused on protecting the environment, primarily in Latin America and has been involved with treaty discussions.

Gemma Nelson, a lawyer from Samoa who is currently an Ocean Voices fellow at the University of Edinburgh, said that small Pacific and Caribbean island countries were “especially vulnerable to global ocean issues,” such as pollution and climate change, which generally they did not cause nor have the resources to easily address.

“Getting the traditional knowledge of local people and communities recognized as valid” is also essential to protect both ecosystems and the ways of life of Indigenous groups, she said.

Gladys de Lemos, executive director of the Interamerican Association for Environmental Defense, said that the talks are important due to the fact that half the planet is covered by high seas.

An Intergovernmental Treaty of Nice and Broken Cooperation between the World Ocean and the High Seas, signed at the United Nations, in New York, on Saturday

The agreement was signed on Saturday evening after two weeks of negotiations at the United Nations headquarters in New York ended in a mammoth final session of more than 36 hours – but it has been two decades in the making.

Laura Meller of the WWF said this was a historic day and a sign that in a divided world, protection of nature and people can triumph.

Human activity on the ocean is adding pressure, including industrial fishing, shipping, the nascent deep sea mining industry and the race to harness the ocean’s “genetic resources” – material from marine plants and animals for use in industries such as pharmaceuticals.

There aren’t any comprehensive regulations for the protection of marine life in this area.

“There are huge unmanaged gaps of habitat between the puzzle pieces. It is truly that bad out there,” Douglas McCauley, professor of ocean science at the University of California Santa Barbara, told CNN.

There were points during the negotiations where some worried that agreement would never happen, as conflicts threatened to derail talks. “It’s been a bit of a roller coaster ride,” said Karan.

Major sticking points included nailing down the processes for creating marine protected areas and ensuring costs and benefits were shared equitably – especially as many developing countries may not have the technology or capacity to do their own scientific exploration of the high seas.

If we want to keep the high seas healthy for the next century, we have to change this system now. And this is our one, and potentially only, chance to do that. The time is very short. Climate change is about to rain down hellfire on our ocean,” McCauley said.

An updated framework to protect marine life in the regions outside national boundary waters, known as the high seas, had been in discussions for more than 20 years, but previous efforts to reach an agreement had repeatedly stalled. The treaty was agreed to late Saturday.

Not all activities planned for the high seas will be assessed, according to Jessica Battle, an oceans governance expert at the Worldwide Fund for Nature.

Many whales, dolphins, sea turtles and fish make annual migrations from the high seas to national borders. Human communities that depend on fishing or tourism to make a living have previously been hampered by a confusing patchwork of laws.

“This treaty allows us to address threats and concerns in different parts of the country,” said Battle.

An analysis of the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea (Cosmology of the Ocean) and the challenges of international ocean science

Gladys Martnez de Lemos, executive director of the Interamerican Association for Environmental Defense, stated that protection also helps coastal and biodiversity economies.

She said that the government has taken an important step that strengthens the legal protections of two-thirds of the ocean and the livelihoods of coastal communities.

Commercial fishing operations span more than half the world’s ocean and have been detrimental to species and their habitats. According to the World Wildlife Fund, more than a third of all sharks, rays and a shark-like fish called chimaera are at risk of extinction because of overfishing.

Elizabeth Mendenhall, a professor at the University of Rhode Island who is researching ocean governance, said that there was no way to coordinate between these organizations.

She said areas get more than they can handle because they don’t have a coordinated,holistic perspective.

Another issue is that there is no international body committed to preserving biological diversity in regions outside territorial seas or ground rules on accessing genetic resources found in international waters, Mendenhall said.

The treaty will also regulate countries and companies who can access and benefit sharing from the commercialization of “marine genetic resources,” which can be useful for the creation of pharmaceuticals or cosmetics.

Ensuring resources will be shared in a fair and equitable way was a point of tension in the U.N. negotiations.

The treaty aims at making research in international waters more accessible and inclusive for developing countries.

Establishing global standards for environmental impact assessments on commercial activities in the ocean is one of the four major components of the agreement. Cumulative impact and combined and incremental impacts from different activities will be considered in these evaluations.

Speer from the NRDC said that implementing the treaty is not only crucial for the waters outside national jurisdictions, but also for the regions and countries within it.

“It’s important because billions of people around the world rely on the ocean for basic needs — their food, their jobs, their income, their sustenance, culturally as well as economically,” she said.

For example, the U.S. has yet to ratify the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, which was the last international treaty on ocean protection signed over 40 years ago.