#exporting extinction

The world’s wealthiest nations are “exporting extinction” by destroying 15 times more biodiversity internationally than within their own borders, research shows. Most wildlife habitats are being destroyed in countries with tropical forest, according to the study which looked at how wealthy countries’ demand for products such as beef, palm oil, timber and soya beans is destroying biodiversity hotspots elsewhere. It found that high-income nations were responsible for 13% of global loss of forest habitats outside their own borders. The US alone was responsible for 3% of the world’s non-US forest habitat destruction. “That just underscores the magnitude of the process,” said lead researcher Alex Wiebe, a doctoral student in ecology and evolutionary biology at Princeton University in the US. Countries that had the most significant impacts abroad included the US, Germany, France, Japan, China and the UK, according to the paper, published in Nature. Globally, habitat loss is the biggest threat to most species and about 90% is caused by conversion of wild habitats to agricultural land. “By importing food and timber, these developed nations are essentially exporting extinction,” said Prof David Wilcove, co-author of the study from Princeton University. “Global trade spreads out the environmental impacts of human consumption, in this case prompting the more developed nations to get their food from poorer, more biodiverse nations in the tropics, resulting in the loss of more species.” A lot of deforestation occurs in places with high levels of biodiversity, such as Indonesia, Brazil or Madagascar. Researchers say that analysing these patterns could help promote more targeted conservation and sustainable food production.