Vanishing species

Grim as it is, even this piece of news isn't reflective of the true extent to which life around us is atrophying. For one thing, only a fraction of the known species has been assessed leaving out the whole lot of the rest, so that full picture of the damage is unavailable. For the other, less is known about marine species; suffice it to say though, there has been an unbridled exploitation of fish and aquatic resources. Extinction of plant life which must have been phenomenal already hasn't been globally assessed, far less addressed.

The disaster of breaking life chains is evidently man-made, and should therefore, have been avoided by human intervention, or more precisely, by policy interventions from the developed world, especially the United States. Overexploitation of natural resources, destruction of habitats, pollution, climate change and global warming are causing severe erosion to biodiversity, the mainspring of life in all forms. Even the greenhouse emission cutting standards set by the Kyoto protocol which the US has not signed up to, are not considered adequate to avert global warming and rising sea levels that could further threaten life in the planet.

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The World Conservation Congress in Bangkok has brought together five thousand scientists, environmental activists and experts from 181 countries to debate the extinction crisis and draw up a conservation blueprint for the next four years. Let's not forget, some of the long-lost species have been recovered after concerted conservation campaigns.