IPBES Assessment Report on the Sustainable Use of Wild Species

In News: A report by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) was released.

• The IPBES Assessment Report on the Sustainable Use of Wild Species has been carried out over four years.

Key findings

• A report has found that with the accelerating global biodiversity crisis, a million species of plants and animals are facing extinction.
• Humans depend on 50,000 wild species for various things, including food, energy, medicine, material and other purposes, directly depend on 10,000 species for food and that over-exploitation is one of the main reasons for biodiversity degradation.
• People all over the world directly use about 7,500 species of wild fish and aquatic invertebrates, 31,100 wild plants, of which 7,400 species are trees, 1,500 species of fungi, 1,700 species of wild terrestrial invertebrates and 7,500 species of wild amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals.
• Wild plants, algae and fungi provide food, nutritional diversity and income for an estimated one in five people around the world, in particular women, children, landless farmers and others in vulnerable situations.
• Approximately 4 billion people, or one-third of the global population, rely on fuel wood for cooking and an estimated 880 million people globally log firewood or produce charcoal, particularly in developing countries.
• Globally, wild tree species provide two thirds of industrial roundwood and half of all wood consumed for energy.
• Small-scale fisheries support over 90% of the 120 million people and about half of the people involved in small-scale fisheries are women.
• The report finds that 34% of marine wildlife is overfished.
• Over-exploitation has been identified as the main threat to wild species in marine ecosystems and the second greatest threat to those in terrestrial and freshwater ecosystems.
• Unsustainable fishing is the main cause for the increased extinction risk of sharks and rays over the past half century.
• Unsustainable hunting has been identified as a threat for 1,341 wild mammal species, including 669 species that were assessed as threatened.
• An estimated 12% of wild tree species are threatened by unsustainable logging and unsustainable gathering is one of the main threats for several plant groups, notably cacti, cycads, and orchids as well as other plants and fungi harvested for medicinal purposes.
• Unsustainable harvest contributes towards elevated extinction risk for 28-29% of near-threatened and threatened species from 10 taxonomic groups assessed on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.

Source: Indian Express