SUPER-ABUNDANCE
The diversity of life on Earth is astounding. Over the course of several billion years, myriad life forms have evolved to occupy every last niche of our planet, including even the most inhospitable areas such as blisteringly hot deep-ocean vents, relentlessly dry deserts and the freezer-like temperatures of Antarctica. A single rainforest tree can host as many as 2,000 species of insect, bird, reptile, amphibian, mammal, fungus, moss and other plants. Tantalisingly, the 1.2 million species already identified are merely the tip of the iceberg. The vast majority of the world's biodiversity – including over five million varieties of insect and more than two million marine creatures – has yet to be described.
880
mountain gorillas are left in the wild. Though numbers are still worryingly low, conservation efforts are helping to turn their fortunes around.
Over 9,600
tree species are in danger of extinction, along with almost 8,000 species of fish, amphibian, reptile, mammal and bird.
DRIVEN TO EXTINCTION
Sadly, this jaw-dropping super-abundance of life is under massive pressure from a rapidly expanding and all-consuming human population whose indiscriminate harvesting and plundering of the planet's natural resources has reached unsustainable levels. As fossil records tell us, species extinction is not a recent phenomenon; however, thanks to human activities such as habitat destruction and conversion, and commercial exploitation of wildlife, the current rate is one thousand times higher than the natural extinction rate.
Almost 8,000 species of fish, amphibian, reptile, mammal and bird are officially categorised as globally threatened, and over 9,600 tree species are in danger of extinction. Alarming numbers of species – including some of the most charismatic and best-loved animals on the planet – are joining the critical list. The recently discovered Myanmar snub-nosed monkey was declared critically endangered almost as soon as it had been given a scientific name.
And those are just the species we know about. Given the vast number of life forms that remain unidentified, it's a race against time to find out exactly what biological riches are out there, and to protect them, before they are lost forever.
