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 ore than 1.1 billion people live within the 25 most
species-rich and environmentally threatened areas of the world,
according to a new report released by Population Action International
(PAI). The report documents, for the first time, the historical
impact of population growth on biological diversity on a global
scale, with special attention to the current situation in these
25 "biodiversity hotspots."
 "We
found that human population density levels and growth rates in
the hotspots significantly exceed those of the world as a whole,
a potentially alarming finding for environmental conservation,"
reports lead author Richard Cincotta, PhD, ecologist and PAI
senior researcher. "However, the current slowing of world
population growth offers hope for easing the pressure of human
activities on these ecologically valuable, yet fragile areas."
Nature's
Place: Human Population and the Future of Biological Diversity
reveals that, while the hotspots cover less than an eighth of
the Earth's land surface, they are now home to one-fifth of the
world's population. In 19 of the 25 hotspots, population is growing
faster than in the world as a whole. In 16 of the 25, population
densities are at or above the average density of the world as
a whole. Today, each hotspot retains no more than 25 percent
of its original natural vegetation -- and most hotspots contain
much less than that.
The report
finds that the human population of 6 billion -- our geographic
range, demand for natural resources and ways of disposing of
waste -- underlies and fuels the more direct causes of recent
and current plant and animal extinctions. These extinctions are
proceeding at least a thousand times faster today than in the
prehuman past. And this rate is expected to accelerate in the
21st century.
PAI's findings
are in keeping with those of the scientific community. A 1998
Harris poll found that nearly 70 percent of biologists polled
believe that a mass extinction is already underway, and that
one-fifth of all living species could disappear within the next
30 years.
Among the
regions covered by the PAI report, population density is highest
in the Western Ghats/Sri Lanka, the Philippines, and the Caribbean.
Population is growing fastest in Choco-Darien in Western Ecuador,
the Tropical Andes and Madagascar.
Three species-rich
hotspots cross US soil: the California Floristic Province hot-spot,
the Caribbean hotspot (south Florida and the Everglades), and
the Polynesia/Micronesia hotspot (Hawaii). In each of these areas,
migration and related population growth have contributed to an
advance of suburban sprawl and rapid breakdown of species-rich
biological communities. Today, roughly 90 percent of the US plant
species listed as endangered by the US Fish and Wildlife Service
are found in these three "hotspot" states.
PAI offers
a plan of action to help save a critical mass of the earth's
remaining biological diversity, including steps to ensure that
people everywhere can determine for themselves the timing of
childbirth and the size of their families. This would strengthen
the trend toward slower population growth and, in turn, benefit
the environment. Among PAI's recommendations are that:
- The US Congress ratify the Convention on
Biological Diversity, an international agreement to save the
planet's biodiversity and equitably share its benefits;
- Governments, donors and individual communities
elevate the priority of biological diversity and invest in its
conservation; and
- Donor and developing countries increase their
financial and policy commitments to the Programme of Action of
the International Conference on Population and Development, to
ensure that family planning services are available to all who
want them by 2015.
"If
we act now, we can still conserve the majority of the species
and ecosystems with which we share the planet. The impact of
human population within the biodiversity hotspots is another
powerful example of why we must strive to protect each and every
piece of what still remains within these incredibly important
fragments of biodiversity-rich real estate," says Russell
A. Mittermeier, President of Conservation International (CI).
CI recently released the most current data on the global biodiversity
hotspots, a concept pioneered by British ecologist Norman Myers
in the early 1980s.
"The
surest way to preserve our natural heritage is to invest in meeting
the needs of people," says Amy Coen, President of PAI. "That
is why family planning and conservation advocates in the United
States support the Administration's budget request of $542 million
for international family planning programs in fiscal 2001. This
amount is just a few hundredths of one percent of the US budget,
but the only way to support the current positive trend of slowing
population growth. It's an investment we can't afford not to
make." 
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