As Hurricane Dorian presses with some
of the strongest fury ever experienced, climate change deniers must be
squirming at least a tad. As far as the United States goes, those severe
tropical explosive storms have a particular fondness to decimate red states.
But man’s proclivity to assault the planet and her resources is hardly
relegated simply to acceleration of greenhouse gasses and climate change,
however impactful that fact is by itself. We are converting natural habitats to
agricultural uses and urban expansion. We are over extracting, over harvesting,
over-fishing and crushing our environment to the point where humans just might
be building their own scenario for extinction.
All of the above factors combined are
particularly damaging, especially to life on planet earth as we know it.
“People are putting nature in more trouble now than at any other time in human
history, with the risk of extinction looming over 1 million species of plants
and animals, scientists said Monday [May 6th]. But it's not too late
to fix the problem, according to the United Nations' first comprehensive report on biodiversity. [Over 1000 pages] ‘We
have reconfigured dramatically life on the planet,’ report co-chairman Eduardo
Brondizio of Indiana University said at a press conference.
“Species loss is accelerating to a rate tens
or hundreds of times faster than in the past, the report said. More than half a
million species on land ‘have insufficient habitat for long-term survival’ and
are likely to go extinct, many within decades, unless their habitats are
restored. The oceans are not any better off…
“The report relies heavily on research by the
International Union for the Conservation of Nature, or IUCN, which is composed
of biologists who maintain a list of threatened species…. The IUCN calculated
in March that 27,159 species are threatened, endangered or extinct in the wild
out of nearly 100,000 species biologists examined in depth. That includes 1,223
mammal species, 1,492 bird species and 2,341 fish species. Nearly half the
threatened species are plants… Scientists have only examined a small fraction
of the estimated 8 million species on Earth.
“The report comes up with 1 million species in
trouble by extrapolating the IUCN's 25 percent threatened rate to the rest of
the world's species and using a lower rate for the estimated 5.5 million
species of insects, [Robert Watson, a former top NASA and British scientist who
headed the report] said.
“Outside scientists, such as [George Mason
University biologist Thomas Lovejoy, who has been called the godfather of
biodiversity for his research] and others, said that's a reasonable
assessment.
“The report gives only a generic ‘within
decades’ time frame for species loss because it is dependent on many variables,
including taking the problem seriously, which can reduce the severity of the
projections, Watson said… ‘We're in the middle of the sixth great extinction
crisis, but it's happening in slow motion,’ said Conservation International and
University of California Santa Barbara ecologist Lee Hannah, who was not part
of the report.
“Five times in the past, Earth has undergone mass
extinctions where much
of life on the planet blinked out, like the one that killed the dinosaurs.”
CBSNews.com, May 6th. The UN report stopped short of affirming that
assertion. But perhaps one particular story, about the world’s unceasing demand
for one particular luxury good, will provide one excellent example of man’s
apparent lack of concern for species loss. It’s a about one species of fish,
the wild sturgeon on the Danube, as reported by Denise Hruby for the September
2nd Los Angeles Times: “For fishermen willing to risk the penalties, catching a
female carrying roe is equivalent to winning the lottery, a World Wildlife Fund
official said…
“Whatever had gotten caught in Ivan
Ivanov’s net, he knew it wasn’t an ordinary fish. The sheer strength with which
it was pushing against the Danube River’s current suggested a mass several
times Ivanov’s own weight… Reeling it in, the fish towed him and his boat as if
they were toys. He thought of the chilly February waters, 40 degrees
Fahrenheit. Then, his mind wandered to the fish. ‘It could have killed me,’
Ivanov recalled, still terrified. Only a sturgeon, he reckoned, could put up
such a fight. It turned out to be 485 pounds.
“It was an extraordinary catch.
Sturgeons have become so rare in the Danube that they have been declared a
protected species by several nations. Fishermen face hefty fines or jail
sentences for breaking the laws.
“But sturgeons like the one in
Ivanov’s net hold the promise of changing one’s life. At that weight, the
sturgeon would have carried roughly 110 pounds of roe, which, when cured, is
caviar. The world’s most expensive food, caviar retails for as much as $3,000
per pound.” The catch was also illegal. Both Bulgaria, where Ivanov’s fishes,
and Romania have banned fishing sturgeon from the Danube, a threat that is both
sparsely and laxly enforced, violators often given little more than a warning.
“Six species of sturgeons are
native to the Danube River Basin, five are classified as either ‘Endangered’ or
‘Critically Endangered,’ and one ‘Vulnerable’ (Acipenser ruthenus) according to
the 2004 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species (IUCN 2004). In fact,
one of the five endangered species, the Atlantic sturgeon (Acipenser
sturio), is already extinct in the Danube River Basin.”
Surprising-Romania.blogspot.com, which supplied the above picture.
But with that much money at stake,
even with sustainable sturgeon farms providing product (sturgeon are
particularly difficult to raise; it can take 15 years for a single fish), you
can bet that it’s not just impoverished fishermen plying their trade. Particularly
since this was a most legitimate and fundamental line of work for centuries in
times past. Plus river fish are free.
“Criminal syndicates have cynically
caught on: All that must be done is to label a wild, illegally sourced caviar
as originating from a farm. In 2003, five years after a first big crackdown on
the wild caviar trade, the United Nations reported that ‘perhaps no sector of
the illegal fauna or flora trade has been criminalized to the extent of that of
sturgeon and caviar.’
“In the mid-2000s, U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service investigators found that selling illegal caviar had become so
lucrative that seven of the East Coast’s 10 biggest caviar traders were
illegally importing millions of dollars’ worth annually, unbeknownst to
consumers. The U.S. government has signed an international agreement to improve
labeling systems to ensure consumers that their caviar is legally sourced and
sustainable, but has yet to implement it… Amid spotty enforcement, the market
continues to grow, from $360 million in 2017 to a projected $500 million in
2023, according to an analysis by Global Info Research.
“As with any illicit trade, it’s
impossible to know just how much illegally sourced caviar is flooding the
market, but recent market analysis and DNA tests have shown that it is still
found across the globe, according to Jutta Jahrl, who works for the World
Wildlife Fund and manages Nature’s Life for Danube Sturgeons project… ‘In
volume, it’s got to be less than before, simply because there aren’t many
sturgeons left. But it’s clear that it’s devastating for the few that remain,’
Jahrl said.” LA Times.
That’s just one fish story that
summarizes the problem. Many varieties of tuna, salmon and sea bass, all very
common on menus everywhere, are already suffering from overfishing and changing
water temperatures. Too many canaries in too many coal mines. And still, very
little is really being done to change this, certainly not remotely enough.
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