Loss of Nature Will Damage Economies

(from: www.breakingnewsenglish.com)

We are causing so much damage to our planet that it will soon affect the global economy. This bleak warning is according to a new United Nations report called the Global Biodiversity Outlook (GBO). The paper says there are many important ecosystems on our planet that are in danger. These “tipping points” in our natural world are where man’s negative impact on nature will start costing national economies. Examples of these are the deaths of coral reefs, the destruction of huge areas of forest, or major pollution of rivers.

UN spokesman Ahmed Djoglaf said: "The news is not good. We continue to lose biodiversity at a rate never before seen in history - extinction rates may be up to 1,000 times higher than the historical…rate."

Scientists are worried that governments will not do enough to try to reduce the damage to the tipping points. World leaders will soon meet in Nairobi to discuss measures to tackle global biodiversity loss. They hope they can then create an international framework that will be adopted at a convention on biological diversity in October in Japan.

The GBO report outlines how serious the threat is. It says huge numbers of species are facing extinction if we continue to pollute the environment. Over a quarter of corals may soon disappear. This will have a huge impact on marine life and many fish species will also disappear. Countries will be fighting over much smaller stocks of fish. This problem will be made worse with the increasing pollution of the world’s rivers.