Between a quarter and a third of the world's wildlife has been lost since 1970, according to data compiled by the Zoological Society of London.
- Quote from well-known anarchist group, The Royal Zoological Society
Now this is a major major crisis, what is causing all of this?
Populations of land-based species fell by 25%, marine by 28% and freshwater by 29%, it says.
Humans are wiping out about 1% of all other species every year, and one of the "great extinction episodes" in the Earth's history is under way, it says.
Pollution, farming and urban expansion, over-fishing and hunting are blamed.
Even if the pleas of scientists, environmentalists and a large part of the public have still not convinced people that the extinction crisis is real and will be catastrophic, maybe an appeal to self-interest could work.
For example, these two stories have recently been on BBC...
Dogfish shark chemical squalamine 'stops human viruses'
A chemical found in the dogfish shark could be a safe and potent weapon against human viruses, say scientists.
Noting how powerful the shark's natural immunity to viral infections is, the researchers set about finding out why.
They already knew that the fish makes a compound called squalamine that it uses to fight off bacteria.
Lab tests revealed squalamine is also a good antiviral candidate, killing a broad spectrum of human and animal viruses, PNAS journal reports.
Synthetic squalamine has already been given to patients in clinical trials to stop blood vessel growth in cancers, with no major side effects.
The second...
Coral could hold key to sunscreen pill
"What we have found is that the algae living within the coral makes a compound that we think is transported to the coral, which then modifies it into a sunscreen for the benefit of both the coral and the algae.
"Not only does this protect them both from UV damage, but we have seen that fish that feed on the coral also benefit from this sunscreen protection, so it is clearly passed up the food chain."
This could ultimately mean that people might be able to get inbuilt sun protection for their skin and eyes by taking a tablet containing the compounds. But for now, Dr Long's team are focusing their efforts on a lotion.
These are of course only 2 small examples. There are 100s more, possibly the most famous being that aspirin comes from the bark of a tree.
This is not an exhortation that we all start using herbal medicines, I am talking about hospital medicines here.
It's a very simple situation. If you wipe everything out, you won't have as many medicines to help recover from diseases that may be in part caused by the fact you have wiped everything out.
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