SA's biodiversity under threat

Many of South Africa's unique plant and animal species are disappearing.

A new study says the natural world is changing faster than expected across most of Southern Africa, and the situation is likely to get worse as Africa's population increases.

The study, by Stellenbosch zoologist Steven Chown, will appear next month to coincide with the 350th Royal Society of London Anniversary Symposium on Biodiversity in a Changing World.

It confirms several other recent research projects that all point to worrying environmental changes across the region, largely due to climate change and human activities such as farming and housing development.

Chown, who previously highlighted the effects of global warming on Antarctic penguins, says the trend is so bad that the world's biological zones, or "biomes", are being reclassified to reflect the fast-changing shift in landscapes and species.

"Climate change is upon us. There is absolutely no doubt about it.

"Humans are warming the planet, and this is causing substantial change, which is happening very quickly," Chown said at a public lecture in Stellenbosch this week.

"The science is obvious, it is staring us in the face, yet we aren't doing nearly enough," he said.

"We're frightened. We don't want to admit what is happening.

''And we want to do only what is easy."

Among the most alarming recent findings related to plant and animal diversity are:

• Up to 40% of birds, 45% of reptiles and 70% of butterflies face extinction between the years 2050 and 2100 if current trends continue in South Africa;
• The Kruger National Park could lose 66% of its animal species diversity;
• According to the most recent list of threatened South African plants, 364 species are listed as critically endangered and 76 as "possibly extinct". Habitat destruction was listed as one of the major causes for this;
• Some of the animal species in trouble include the rhino, abalone and southern Black Korhaan - a bird species in the Southern and Western Cape; and
• Burchell's Redfin, a fish species, has gone from rare to critically endangered.

Commenting on the latest research trends, South African climate change researcher Guy Midgley from the South African National Biodiversity Institute said: "Biodiversity and ecosystems are irreplaceable in allowing human society to adapt to climate change as well; we will reduce our chances of pulling through the climate change crisis if we allow biodiversity to degrade too much. How much?

"We do not know yet, but the precautionary principle and the knowledge we have suggests that we would be better off erring on the conservative side."