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TIMELINE of HUMAN POPULATION
GROWTH VS SPECIES LOSS
or HUMAN IMPACT UPON BIODIVERSITY
World
YEARS AGO REASON Human Pop. EXTINCTIONS
(millions)
40,000 - 25,000 Ice age; hunting by humans 95% of megafauna in Australia and New Guinea
40,000 - 13,000 Hunting by humans 30 - 50% of megafauna ( large animals, birds, reptiles) in Europe, North Asia
20, 000 - 10,000 Hunting by humans 75% or 30 types of large mammals in North & South America
13,000 Agriculture 10 Wild gazelles in Fertile Crescent Area of Middle East
7,000 - 3,000 Hunting by humans 20 Giant ground sloths, monkeys and tortoises in Caribbean Is.
5,000 Hunting & agriculture Dwarf megafauna including elephants in the Mediterranean Is.
3,500 Hunting 50 Mammoths in Siberian Arctic
1,500 - 200 Hunting 300 Moas and other large flightless birds in New Zealand.
1,000 - 200 Hunting 1000 Large birds, tortoises, lemurs small hippopotami in Madagascar
500 - 35 Spread of European colonisation Decline of many species of fish, birds & mammals
35 - future Overpopulation, globalisation 6000 3,000 species declined 40% from 1970 to 2000. .
Species are going extinct at 1,000 times the natural or .
backround rates typical of the Earth's past.
Estimates 2 million to 10 million species of plants,
animals and microorganisms are in the world today.
The background rate of extinction has been one species every .
4 years on average.
Half of all species could become extinct in next 100 years;
20% by 2022
50% of all current species gone in 100 years. Probably
10 million to 100 million species in the world.Could say 50 million
Human-caused
extinction now may be 120,000 times the background level.
[this equates to 30,000 species per year].
Norman Myers estimates 600 species are becoming extinct
each week. Some say 1,000 - but no certainty.Myers thinks
10 million species in the world, of which 600,000 lost since 1950.
If tree felling continues at the rate of about 2% p.a., the
world will lose 25% of all species by 2000 and another 33%
in next 100 years.
Number of species doubles with every ten-fold increase in area.
Thus reverse can be applied
Over one million species will be threatened with extinction by
2050. Forecast range: minimum 18%, medium 24%, high 35%.
Global diversity assessment of 1995: 13 million species, of which
only 13% scientifically described. In coral reefs alone, 200,000
species will die out in 40 years.

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