Efforts to slow down biodiversity loss are failing big-time. That is the conclusions drawn from a recent study, conducted by a huge 45-person team of scientists, thats just been published in the journal Science.

In 2002, world leaders promised through the Convention on Biological Diversity to achieve "significant reductions by 2010" in the global loss of biodiversity. This target was later included in the United Nations Millenium Development Goals, as a direct acknowledgement that biodiversity loss has negative impacts on human livelihoods and societal development.

Fast-forward to 2010 and the International Year of Biodiversity and most conservationists will tell you that we're far from meeting these targets. Until recently these doom and gloom statements haven't been anchored in any real global assessment. Rather, they've simply been based on the extrapolation of some local and regional examples.

A recent study, led by Stuart Butchart from the UN Environment Programme's World Conservation Monitoring Centre (Unep-WCMC) and BirdLife International, evaluated the trends in 10 indicators of the planet’s biodiversity. These included things like the global status of vertebrate populations and the global cover of key ecosystems such as forests and coral reefs. The authors also investigated how human pressure on biodiversity had changed (e.g. the exploitation of fish stocks) and how societal responses (e.g. the extent of protected areas and economic aid aimed at biodiversity protection) had evolved during this period of time.

The South African fynbos ecosystem; a biodiversity hotspot, but for how long more? Photo by Jerker Lokrantz/azote.se

As expected, 8 out of 10 biodiversity indicators have continued declining since the 1970, and the rates at which they are decreasing do not appear to have slowed down, the team reports. Meanwhile, pressures such as overfishing and deposition of reactive nitrogen have gone up and show few signs of abating. "Our analysis shows that governments have failed to deliver on the commitments they made in 2002," said research leader Stuart Butchart. "Biodiversity is still being lost as fast as ever, and we have made little headway in reducing the pressures on species, habitats and ecosystems."

However, humanity does get some points for effort in the recent study. All six indicators of responses to the biodiversity problem have increased, including the amount of protected area and the adoption of policies attempting to control invasive species. The authors also highlight a few specific success stories, such as the resurgence of North American and European waterbirds. The problem is that the gap between pressures and responses is growing. In essence, although humanity is getting better at taking steps to protect biodiversity we're unfortunately getting much, much better at destroying it.

This is an important study in many ways, but its main message is quite disheartening. The authors hope that in laying the sheer size of the problem before governments and policy makers will cause them to take tougher steps in the near future. Maybe this will be the case, but sdupdate is not so sure. Certain social scientists are arguing that people that have made up their mind on certain issues cannot be swayed by fact alone. As we have posted previously, maybe its not the message that is the most important aspect, but rather how the message is communicated and to whom. And after such a gloomy post it seems fitting to cite, again, the Norwegian author Jostein Gaarder and his views on the biodiversity challenge:

“I have decided not to be a pessimist on behalf of nature and biological diversity. We can't permit us the decadence it is to be pessimists. Pessimism is merely another word for disclaiming liability, another word for laziness. Midway between pessimism and optimism is what is called hope, and the practical extension of hope is what we call struggle.  Just as the struggle for human rights never ends, the struggle to preserve the biological diversity of the planet will never be over.”