Oh My: 1 in 5 of Lions, Tigers and Other Vertebrates in Danger

Kermit the Frog was right when he sang "It's not easy being green."

These days, it's not so easy being a frog—or any other amphibian, reptile, bird, mammal or fish for that matter. A dramatic report out yesterday describes the planet's slide down the slope of an extinction vortex. The study, based on five decades of work by 174 scientists on about 25,000 species in nearly 40 countries, is overwhelming, quite frankly.

A few facts worth highlighting, with a lot more detail to be found at MongaBay.com:

- One in five vertebrate species, which include the categories above, are threatened with extinction.

- On average, 50 mammal, bird, and amphibian species move closer to extinction a year, due to threats such as agricultural and logging expansion, land exploitation, and invasive species.

- Amphibians such as Kermit really do have it the worst, with up to 41 percent threatened, the highest of any group.

- The worst place for a vertebrate to live is in the tropics, especially Southeast Asia where rampant logging and palm, rice, pulp and paper plantations have decimated the habitat for all life on earth.

- The IUCN, the international conservation organization responsible for coordinating the study and for its authoritative "Red List" of threatened species, says that the 56,000 some species it evaluates represent only represent 2 percent of the total known species. Many others also face likely threats.

Yet the report isn't a total downer. It is the first to document clear data that conservation has worked on a global scale, rather than just for particular species. Without conservation these efforts, scientists estimate our ship would be sinking nearly 20 percent faster.

And biodiversity matters. Another report issued by the United Nation this week finds that businessmen should be far more concerned about species and ecosystem losses than about international terrorism, according to The Guardian, with the costs of species and ecosystem losses likely rising to billions of dollars for investors.

What to do in the face of this scary information and simultaneous presentation of a glimmer of hope?

Conservation will be crucial, as the findings make clear.

Both reports were timed to the ongoing United Nations negotiations for the Convention on Biodiversity, a global conservation treaty that only the U.S. and one tiny Eastern European nation have yet to sign and ratify. The aim is a new biodiversity conservation plan for 2020, but progress is not going so hot (though Japan just offered up a whopping $2 billion). The U.S. could help by getting off the sidelines and actually ratifying the treaty, as Marah Hardt points out. (Sign here to tell the U.S. Senate that).

In my own humble opinion, I don't think we can cling to the idea that "conservation" will save us, at least in the traditional sense of preserving tracts of land or eradicating invasive species in isolation. We need to address the destructive attitude at the root of the extinction crisis. In Southeast Asia, the most threatened world region, that starts with reforming destructive palm oil farming practices, which are currently responsible for the worst of the deforestation.

To start, the Rainforest Action Network has been pressuring Agribusiness giant Cargill, a major palm oil buyer in Southeast Asia, to develop a sustainable purchasing policy. You can join their call to Cargill by signing their petition here.

Photo credit: Tobyotter via Flickr

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