UNEP launches wildlife atlas
Xinhuanet 2002-08-01 05:37:17
NAIROBI, Aug. 1 (Xinhuanet) -- The first wildlife atlas was
launched Thursday by the United Nations Environment Program
(UNEP).
The atlas, dubbed the World Atlas of Biodiversity: Earth's Living
Resources for the 21st Century, is the first comprehensive map-based
view of global biodiversity.
It provides a wealth of facts and figures on the importance of
forests, wetlands, marine and coastal environments and other key
ecosystems, and also shows how humankind is dependent on healthy
ecosystems for all its needs.
During the past 150 years, humans have directly impacted and altered
close to 47 percent of the global land area, said the atlas.
Under one bleak scenario, biodiversity will be threatened on almost
72 percent of the land area by 2032.
The atlas reveals that losses of biodiversity are likely to be
particularly severe in Southeast Asia, the Congo basin and parts of
the Amazon.
As much as 48 percent of these areas will be converted to
agricultural land, plantations and urban areas, compared with 22
percent today, suggesting wide depletions of biodiversity.
Eighty percent of people in developing countries rely on medicines
based largely on plants and animals. And in the United States alone,
56 percent of the top 150 prescribed drugs with an economic value of
80 billion US dollars are linked with discoveries made in the wild.
Experts estimate that at current extinction rates of plants
andanimals, the world is losing one major drug every two years.
Klaus Toepfer, UNEP executive director, said that wise use of the
Earth's natural resources is at the heart of sustainable
development.
And it is also a key issue to be discussed by world leaders whowill
attend the World Summit on Sustainable Development which willopen in
Johannesburg, South Africa, on Aug. 26, he said. Enditem
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