Scientists from across the world have “scanned the horizon” in order to identify potentially significant medium and long-term threats to conservation efforts.
Resurrection of several extinct species, the increasingly accelerated loss of wild rhinoceroses and a disastrous financial response to unburnable carbon are just some future global conservation issues flagged up in the Horizon Scan, published in the January issue of Trends in Ecology and Evolution.
Professor William Sutherland and Dr Mark Spalding are amongst the 18 scientists who took part in this year’s Horizon Scan, seeking to identify potential future conservation issues in order to reduce the “probability of sudden confrontation with major social or environmental changes”.
One such plausible issue is the resurrection or re-construction of extinct species, such as the woolly mammoth, passenger pigeon or the thylacine (a carnivorous marsupial). However, though there may be many benefits to the restoration of these animals, such a high-profile project could lead to attention and resources being diverted from attempts to thwart current threats to non-extinct species’ survival.
Hendrik Poinar’s TEDX Talk: Bring back the woolly mammoth!
(Hendrik Poinar explains in his TEDX Talk that not only is the sequencing of extinct genomes a possibility, actually a modern-day reality, but the revival of an extinct species is actually within reach, maybe not from the insects in amber, but from woolly mammoths, the well preserved remains of woolly mammoths in the permafrost.)
From Billions to None: The Passenger Pigeon’s Flight to Extinction — promo trailer
(The promo trailer for the continuing fundraising campaign at: e-int.com/billionstonone Follow author Joel Greenberg and friends on their quest to reveal the incredible story of how the passenger pigeon disappeared in a geologic heartbeat. See why, 100 years later, it is important to remember the event — and act.)
Though the last woolly mammoth died around 4000 years ago, methods such as back-breeding, cloning and genetic engineering may lead to their resurrection. Not only could these extinct animals, and others such as the thylacine and the passenger pigeon, be re-constructed and returned to their native environments, they could potentially be used to “provide tools for outreach and education”.
Footage of the last known thylacine, and its striking jaw, shot before its death in captivity:
(see also EDGE)
However, though this would be a conservational triumph, it could also hamper efforts to protect animals that are currently facing extinction, as both attention and resources would be diverted from preserving existing species and their habitats. Furthermore, there has not been any investigation into the “viability, ethics and safety of releasing resurrected species”, nor the effect their presence may have on indigenous flora and fauna.
Another potential conservational issue identified by the Horizon Scan further highlights the problems facing species today. The loss of wild rhinoceroses and elephants is set to reaccelerate within the next few years, partially stimulated by a growing desire for ivory and horn.
In 2013, it is estimated that over 600 rhinoceroses were poached for their horn in South Africa alone, out of a total global population of less than 26,000. Though an increased human population and proximity to growing infrastructure is partially responsible, organised crime syndicates and intensive hunting carry the weight of the blame. In the Asian countries that use it, rhinoceros horn is more expensive than gold. Demand for the precious horn is ever increasing, resulting in elevated levels of poaching. If attention and resources are diverted from the protection of these majestic animals, we may have yet more candidates for resurrection in the future.
Altogether, this group of scientists identified the top 15 potential conservation issues (out of an initial group of 81 issues). The issues that have been voted as plausible threats that need to be stopped before they can be realised, are:
- Response of financial markets to unburnable carbon
- Extensive land loss in Southeast Asia from subsidence of peatlands
- Carbon solar cells as an alternative source of renewable energy
- Rapid geographic expansion of macroalgal cultivation for biofuels
- Redistribution of global temperature increases among ecosystems
- High-frequency monitoring of land-cover change
- Reaccelerated loss of wild rhinoceroses and elephants
- Increasing scale of eradications of non-native mammals on islands
- Self-sustaining genetic systems for the control of non-native invasive species
- Probiotic therapy for amphibians
- Emerging snake fungal disease
- Poly-isobutylene as a marine toxicant
- Exploitation of Antarctica
- Expansion of ecosystem red listing
- Resurrection of extinct species
(Source: University of Cambridge research news, 23.12.2013)