Extinction looms, but Africa can still be saved, say scientists

12 May 2019 - 00:00 By CLAIRE KEETON

Of the 1-million species threatened by extinction, a high concentration of the animals and plants are found in Africa.
The biggest scientific assessment of Africa's "unique and abundant biodiversity" has shown an accelerating threat, but it is not all doom and gloom, said report co-chairDr Emma Archer, a sustainable development expert at the University of Pretoria.
The report, "Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services for Africa", is one of four regional assessments that preceded the most comprehensive report on global biodiversity yet, released this week, involving hundreds of scientists from 50 countries.
It is a wake-up call to save species that are disappearing at an unprecedented rate.
Archer said: "In all regions, nature's contributions to people are deteriorating and this is critical in Africa, but we are at a unique point where we can influence developmental trajectories in the country, region and continent to make them sustainable."
Of species assessed in Africa, more than 10% are extinct and extinct in the wild, and this proportion rises to about 15% in Southern Africa. Worldwide species abundance on land has dropped by at least 20% since 1900.
"Some progress" in meeting commitments in the Global Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011-2020 remain insufficient.
The Africa report recommended that countries harness their wealth of indigenous and local knowledge to develop policies that benefit people and the environment.
Applied ecologist and contributing author Professor Guy Midgley from Stellenbosch University said: "There is a lot to be learnt about land management, wildlife management and sustainability from indigenous and local knowledge gained over the centuries.
"The efficient management of land is one of the most important ways of slowing down carbon emissions and global warming."
Unless countries adopted sustainable and "transformative change", ecosystems and the people who relied on them would suffer, scientists warned.
In some countries, more than 35% of GDP comes from marine and coastal resources, like fish. The "fishery value" of the marine and coastal areas of Southern Africa is $500m (about R7.1bn) a year.
Only 2.6% of the seas around Africa are protected even though the continent has three-quarters of the most productive large marine ecosystems in the world.
The overexploitation of natural resources, habitat loss linked to rapid urbanisation, industrialisation and agriculture, poaching, invasive alien species, pollution and population growth are among the reasons for the decline in species over the past 20 years."Africa is the last place on Earth with a significant assemblage of large animals," the report said.Climate change is another huge threat to biodiversity, and in some parts of Africa - which has a lower carbon footprint than other continents - temperatures are rising at double the global rate of warming."Southern Africa and SA have two extremely rich ecosystems in the succulent Karoo and fynbos, which evolved over the past few million years when the climate was much cooler than it is now," said Midgley. "In the space of a century we have turned the clock back several million years and this is a real ecological shock to these systems."The global assessment was approved this week by representatives of 132 governments in Paris, France...

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