Haiti excursus: Deforestation so severe, 2% forest cover; charcoal source of energy

1. Haiti excursus: Deforestation so severe, 2% forest cover; charcoal source of energy Most food calories from outside of country. Extreme vulnerability due to too many people and too few food and energy calories available in the country. Hurricanes and sea level rise already worsening vulnerability before the earth quake http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y450UgRBxqg&feature=player_embedded

2. Haiti is the most densely populated country in the Western Hemisphere; the population density in 2002 was 659 per sq mi; world average 100 per sq mile; USA 70; Cuba 235; China 325). Population statistics from the Population Reference Bureau: 1901 = 1.3 million 1925 = 2.5 million 1950 = 3 million 1975 = 4.5 million 2000 = 7.1 million 2010 = 9 million (-150-200k) Projections: 2025 = 11.5 million 2050 = 14.3 million

4. Sustaining Life: How Human Health Depends on Biodiversity, Eric Chivian and Aaron Bernstein, eds., (Oxford University Press, 2008) Biodiversity makes the Earth habitable. It provides food, fiber, shelter, medicines, recycling of waste and many other essential goods and services. Haiti used to be a densely forested tropical paradise. Even before the earthquake it could not provide adequate sustenance for its peoples and was caught in a downward economic, ecological, and social spiral. It was already a failed state whose people had become dependent on others as a direct result of the destruction of their environment.

6. The State of the Planet Report • Diverse, credible sources, despite many uncertainties, summary of the best available science. • Disagreement is fine as are interruptions with questions. • One need not agree with every scientific perception or conjecture to realize that these must be dealt with when considering moral obligations to the natural world. • Only with such basic consensus facts in mind can we properly turn to the wellsprings of moral concern in religion and philosophy. Ok, hold on to your heart and mind — here we go.

7. ECOLOGICALAPOCALYPSE Now?

8. 30% of the Natural World Was Destroyed Between 1970 & 1995 • Consumption pressure doubled during these 25 years • Consumption rates have kept accelerating • Source: the 1998 “The Living Planet Report” by World Wide Fund or Nature, New Economics Foundation, and World Conservation Monitoring Center (Cambridge)

9. Marine Ecosystems --Rapidly Declining • from 1970 to 1995 • They deteriorated 30 per cent, • Declining nearly 4 percent annually • Marine fish consumption has more than doubled since 1970 • Most of the world's fish are fully exploited or declining • Some fish populations have collapsed (e.g, New England Cod fishery)

10. Global Fish Harvest • World fisheries landings have increased from 18.5 million metric tons in 1950 to 121 million metric tons in 1996. • Presently China grabs 25% of the catch • 70% of the global catch is landed by only 12 nations. • The United States ranks fifth, with landings of 5-6 million tons in recent years. • 25-30% of fish are used industrially (mostly to fed livestock)

11. U.S. Coastal dead zones

12. Freshwater resources are being rapidly depleted. • Humans now use half of Earth’s surface-area fresh water — twice that of 1970. • The rate of decline of freshwater ecosystems is averaging 6 percent per year. • This dries up wetlands and threatens species dependent on them. • Vitousek, P. M., J. L. Mooney, and J. M. Melillo. July 25, 1997. Human Domination of Ecosystems. Science 277(5325): 494-9.

13. Freshwater Ecosystems – Even more degraded than marine ones • Have already lost more species than on land and in the oceans. • 34 percent of remaining fish species are threatened with extinction International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN)

14. Agroecosystems (agricultural ecosystems) • 40% of the world’s agricultural land is seriously degraded • 75% of Central American crop land • 20% of (mostly pasture) land in Africa • 11% in Asia • Soil degradation has affected two-thirds of world’s agricultural lands in last 50 years. • Long-term food production capacity is imperiled in many regions • World Resources 2000-2001, People and Ecosystems: the fraying web of life. • Produced by WRI, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), and the World Bank. • 175 scientists contributed to the report, published Sept 2000

15. Deforestation • Between 1970 and 1995 the world’s natural forest cover : • declined about 10 per cent • as wood and paper consumption increased by two-thirds • at a rate averaging 0.5 per cent per year • this is equivalent to an annual loss of forest the size of England and Wales.

16. The world's people have consumed more goods and services since 1950 than all previous generations put together. Taiwan, the U.S. and Singapore have the most voracious consumers. The average North American or Japanese consumes 10 times the resources as does an average Bangladeshi. The average N. American consumes fives times more than people in Africa and Asia. Increasing Consumption:Key to Destruction

18. The State of the Planet ~ Biodiversity in Peril

19. Biological Diversity The Variety of Species and the Genetic Diversity within them: the Key to the Vitality of Life

20. This presentation draws from International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s Red List of Threatened Animals reports since 1996. . . .

21. The WR 2000-2001 report, produced by the World Resources Institute, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), and the World Bank, with over 175 scientists contributing

22. Relative Abundance of Species

23. Biodiversity Decline - An Overview

24. Biodiversity Loss -- Greatest Environmental Threat? • Nearly 400 biologists in 1998 said so in a poll: • Seven of 10 said they believed a "mass extinction" was already underway • An equal number fear that up to one-fifth of all living species could disappear within 30 years.

25. Mammals • 25% of all the world's wild mammals are threatened with extinction • Habitat loss and degradation are primarily responsible.

28. African Elephants

29. Primates • Humans are primates, of course. Few consider humans threatened. • Other primates are, of course, humanity’s closest cousins (chimps, e.g., share 98.5% of same dna) • 325 species, of these, 130 endangered, including all Orangutans, chimpanzees, and most gorillas. • with subspecies included, 608 distinct populations

30. Gorillas and Chimpanzees “critically endangered” (Nature, 2003) • Due to hunting + now ebola. • Populations plummeted by ½ in Gabon and Republic of Congo between 1983+2000; these 2 countries have 80% of world’s gorillas and most of its chimps. • rate of extermination is increasing. • Princeton’s Peter Walsh (2003): “If we don’t do something radical, gorillas and chimpanzees will be effectively extinct from western equatorial Africa within the next ten years.”

31. Miss Waldron's red colobus ~ disappeared in 20th century, declared extinct September 2000

32. Golden Bamboo Leumr (Madagascar)

33. Sumatran orangutan (Indonesia)

34. Cross River Gorilla (Nigeria and Cameroon, West Africa; about 150 remain in small, isolated populations)

35. Yellow-tailed woolly monkey (Andes,Peru)

36. Plants • 1 in 8 plant species is threatened with extinction. • In the United States it is 1 in 3. • 90% of plants on endangered list are native only to the U.S. • Main causes: • habitat loss due to agriculture, logging, development and • exotic species invasions drive out native species

37. Semaphore Cactus

39. Trees • Logging and conversion have shrunk the world’s forests by as much as half. • 9 percent of the world’s tree species are at risk of extinction • World Resources 2000-2001: People and Ecosystems: The Fraying Web of Life, sept 2000

40. Dembaya rodriguesianaExtinct in the wild. This species is unique to Rodrigues Island and once included male and female trees. The one remaining female tree was blown down in a cyclone in 1984. The male, pictured here, died in 1994. Cuttings of both these trees have been taken.

41. Hyophorbe amaricullsOne remaining in the wild. This palm is the only known plant of its species, which is unique to the island of Mauritius. Although it produces both male and female flowers, no viable fruit has been produced, and efforts to grow it in the laboratory have failed.

42. Plant diversity declining ~ fewer seed varieties cultivated • In the USA: • 80% fewer seed varieties sold, compared to a century ago. • 29% of plant species (4,669) endangered • Globally • 30,000 plant species endangered • Genetic losses permanent • A pest-resistant gene found in a seed from Turkey was nearly extinct. • Worldwatch, 1999

44. Reptiles • Jamaican Iguana, thought extinct, numbers about 100 animals

45. Birds • 25% already extinct • Birds are probably suffering the greatest declines currently • Vitousek, P. M., J. L. Mooney, and J. M. Melillo. July 25, 1997. Human Domination of Ecosystems. Science 277(5325): 494-9

46. Dusky Seaside Sparrow Extinct (1990) ~ Lived in Florida (Merritt Island) & along the St. Johns river

48. California Condor - A huge vulture that declined from habitat loss and hunting until the few remaining birds were captured in 1987, then numbering 27 in total (in three genetic clans), to begin a captive breeding program.

49. California Condor

50. Spotted Owl & Habitat