Take Heed!

The authors make a case for the conservation of the rare and lesser-known Sociable Lapwing.

- VAITHIANATHAN KANNAN AND P.A. AZEEZ

One of the infamous repercussions of human development and the consequent impacts on the natural world has been the rising rates of extinction of species far above natural levels. This has been on for millennia, and as a result, the human-caused loss of global biodiversity was already much higher than that in the pre-human civilization era. Since 1500 CE, there has been a still greater wave of extinction. The post-industrial revolution period has seen a higher extinction rate than the pre-industrial revolution period. The extinction rate is still speeding up, biodiversity is in rapid decline, crucial ecosystem processes and services are being ruined or lost, and we are heading fast through the sixth mass extinction. This apocalyptic wave is being driven primarily by mounting consumption of natural resources, globalization, human population growth, consequent changing land and sea use, pollution, and on the whole the current resource-intensive paradigm of development focusing primarily on material growth rather than people’s egalitarian welfare. It is threatening a wider range of animals and plants than the preceding human-driven extinction waves, both in water as well as on land.

Our information on which species have gone extinct since 1500 is collated in the IUCN Red List and is almost exhaustive for vertebrates, especially birds, mammals and amphibians: 711 vertebrates are known or presumed extinct since 1500, which include 181 birds, 113 mammals and 171 amphibians. We know of almost 600 extinctions each of invertebrates and plants since 1500 CE, but given limited knowledge, surveys, and assessment of conservation status, the true magnitude of the losses is certain to be far higher.