Overexploitation Has Moved 122 Bird Species Closer To Extinction

"Landep News"

Indonesia has the most number of endangered bird species due to overexploitation in the world, said Managing Director of Indonesian Wild Bird Conservation Association, Agus Budi Utomo.

“Indonesia is number one from the top ten countries in the world that has the most number of bird species threatened with global extinction because of over exploitation,” Agus said in a press release in Bogor on Monday.

Soon, there will be none of them left

He says that in 2009 there were 117 endangered bird species in Indonesia, 17 species of which have the highest endangered status or critical.

In 2010 this figure increased to 122 species threatened with extinction, including 19 species in critical condition.

Birds function as an environmental quality indicator and also vital to ensure the tropical forests natural regeneration process. The problem is, in Indonesia, around 56% of the designated Biodiversity Priority Area which is part of Bird Conservation area are actually outside protected forest or production forest which in theory can be converted legally to for example plantations. This should be the Government first priority says Agus.

Agus said joint effort is needed to protect Indonesia’s biodiversity to save it from extinction.

“One fifth of vertebrate species are known at this time to be threatened with extinction, this condition would have been worse if there were no global conservation efforts for this,” he said.

He explained that this discovery will be published in the international journal science to review the status of all vertebrate species in the world (mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles and fish), and it changes over the years.

“From 25,000 species found on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species Type, on average each year 50 types of mammals, birds, and amphibians move closer to extinction. The cause of this extinction includes agricultural land clearing, logging, over-exploitation, and invasion of alien species,” he said.

Agus further explained that in Central America, tropical regions of the Andes Mountains in South America, and even Australia has experienced species extinction due to the deadly fungus on amphibian animals.

Southeast Asia, particularly Indonesia has undergone the most dramatic species extinction in recent years, largely caused by damaged or loss of natural forest habitat.

“Therefore, the restoration and management of natural production forests that maintain ecosystem function and sustainable production needs to be done,” said Agus.

These efforts are vital because the forest in addition to act as the main house for the biodiversity of the world, also bring benefits to millions of people living around the forest, he added.

In addition to confirming previous reports about the continuation of biological diversity extinction, this study also the first time gives clear evidence about the positive impact of conservation efforts undertaken around the world.

The study shows that the status of biodiversity would have decrease even further up to 20 percent, if no conservation efforts were undertaken.

“However, greater effort is needed by NGOs, governments, corporations, and individuals who are committed to working together to stop the extinction and begin to direct its action to the root cause of the problem” he said.

This study explores 64 types of mammals, birds and amphibians that have improved thanks to the status of conservation action. However this study only shows conservative estimate of real impacts by conservation action.

Tweet