| 
HOTSPOTS SCIENCE
Life on Earth faces a crisis of historical and planetary proportions. Unsustainable consumption in many northern countries and crushing poverty in the tropics are destroying wild nature. Biodiversity is besieged.Extinction is the gravest aspect of the biodiversity crisis: it is irreversible. While extinction is a natural process, human impacts have elevated the rate of extinction by at least a thousand, possibly several thousand, times the natural rate. Mass extinctions of this magnitude have only occurred five times in the history of our planet; the last brought the end of the dinosaur age.In a world where conservation budgets are insufficient given the number of species threatened with extinction, identifying conservation priorities is crucial. British ecologist Norman Myers defined the biodiversity hotspot concept in 1988 to address the dilemma that conservationists face: what areas are the most immediately important for conserving biodiversity? The biodiversity hotspots hold especially high numbers of endemic species, yet their combined area of remaining habitat covers only 2.3 percent of the Earth's land surface. Each hotspot faces extreme threats and has already lost at least 70 percent of its original natural vegetation. Over 50 percent of the world’s plant species and 42 percent of all terrestrial vertebrate species are endemic to the 34 biodiversity hotspots. Hotspots in Context
Hotspots Defined
Impact of Hotspots
Hotspots Revisited
Key Findings
Hotspots in Peril
Conservation Responses
|
|
© Peter Paul van Dijk
The Malayan snail-eating turtle (Malayemys subtrijuga, VU) is one of the many freshwater turtle species threatened by overexploitation.
© Conservation International, photo by Haroldo Castro
The Cape Floristic Region is the only hotspot to encompass an entire floral kingdom.
|