'Absent-minded killers' : Why no big focus on biodiversity?

Jeffery Sachs laments world leaders' lack of attention to the 'Convention on Biological Diversity'. Sachs subtitles "Absent-Minded Killers" this way, "We kill other species not because we must but because we are too negligent to do otherwise."

Guardian Unlimited Comment is Free, Sachs 03/22/07: As a species, human beings have a major self-control problem. We humans are now so aggressively fishing, hunting, logging, and growing crops in all parts of the world that we are literally chasing other species off the planet. Our intense desire to take all that we can from nature leaves precious little for other forms of life.

In 1992, when the world's governments first promised to address man-made global warming, they also vowed to head off the human-induced extinction of other species. The Convention on Biological Diversity, agreed at the Rio Earth Summit, established that "biological diversity is a common concern of humanity." The signatories agreed to conserve biological diversity, by saving species and their habitats, and to use biological resources (eg forests) in a sustainable manner. In 2002, the treaty's signatories went further, committing to "a significant reduction in the current rate of biodiversity loss" by 2010.

Unfortunately, like so many other international agreements, the Convention on Biological Diversity remains essentially unknown, un-championed, and unfulfilled. That neglect is a human tragedy. …

Comments

[John Feeney]

"Why no big focus on biodiversity?" That's a good question. I wonder if part of it is that people just don't grasp the extent of what's going on. I know I thought I sort of knew the basics, but was still shocked recently to read some of the statistics -- like every one of the great apes (except for us) being in imminent danger of extinction, the same for all tigers, and a 90% decrease in African lions in the last 20 years. And of course those are just the glamor species. Most of the extinctions are happening in insects, birds, and plants (I think) which get little attention, but many of which may constitute very serious losses when all is said and done. I'm not sure, but I suspect if people really knew, there would be more commotion about it.

[Steven Earl Salmony]

Dear John,

At least to me, in these early years of Century XXI it appears that the large mammals you have identified could be "canaries in a coal mine." Certain distinctly human UNBRIDLED overgrowth activities, now uncontrolably overspreading Earth, are darkening and polluting our planetary home and, inadvertently, transforming this wondrous world God has blessed us to inhabit into a proverbial coal mine.

If the large mammals mentioned above do become extinct, what is it about the human species that leads you to believe that it and other large mammals are likely to experience evolutionary success?

Sincerely,

Steve

[Chris Miller]

Except us?