Will Better Knowledge Help Us Save Life on Earth?

Julia Marton-Lefèvre is Director General of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the world’s largest global conservation membership organisation, which brings together states, government agencies, non-governmental organisations, scientists and experts.

Good morning, Ladies and Gentlemen.

It’s a great honour to be speaking here at the Eye on Earth Summit which looks at the importance of data and information in saving life on our planet.

We live in a world full of numbers. So I’d like to start with a little quiz. I’ll show you a few numbers and ask whether you can identify what they stand for.

Hands up if you know what this number is: 3.1415926.

It’s the number pi in mathematics.

Three hundred thousand kilometres per second? Can anyone shed some light on this number?

It’s the speed of light.

Seven billion?

That’s the number of people living on our planet as of 31 October 2011.

Eight point seven million?

This number represents the latest scientific estimate of the number of species living on planet Earth, which for the sake of argument I will follow in this talk (though estimates actually range from five million to one hundred million).

You probably also know that only a small proportion of the total number of species is known to science. One point nine million plants and animals have been described so far—some two hundred and fifty years since the Swedish biologist Carl Linnaeus first devised a method of cataloguing and naming living things.

Very recently, the Catalogue of Life, the official central database of species’ names, contained 1,370,276 entries—that is 72 per cent of the number of described species. In other words, of the 8.7 million species that are thought to exist on our planet, barely 15 per cent have been logged in central databases today.

At the current pace, it would take thousands of specialists and more than one thousand years to go through the laborious process of describing the new discoveries in scientific journals, and then entering them in electronic databases.

Endangered Species

Around sixty thousand, or some 3 per cent, of all known species have been assessed on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species—which is considered the world’s most comprehensive and authoritative source of information on the conservation status of animals and plants. Nonetheless, the Red List does cover all known mammals, birds, amphibians, sharks and rays, reef-building corals, cycads and conifers. Reptiles, fish and several other groups are well on the way.

The biggest gaps are among plants and insects. Insects account for one million of the earth’s species known to science. But even with these knowledge gaps, we know we have a problem. The latest update of the IUCN Red List paints a bleak picture: one-quarter of all mammals, our closest relatives, are threatened with extinction. Forty-one per cent of amphibians, 13 per cent of birds, and 41 per cent of cycads and conifers are also in danger.

Talking of our closest relatives: imagine if these statistics were about your extended family or your friends! Wouldn’t you be worried?

Well, the threats to these species do also pose threats to us, and improving our knowledge about the amazing diversity of life that exists on our planet can help us lead happier, healthier lives. Imagine a new drug that could keep you more active and fit—a new drug that reduces the risk of cancer, heart disease and diabetes; a drug that also improves learning and mental wellbeing—and delivers clean water and fresh air. This new discovery would surely win a Nobel Prize, but it’s not a drug at all—it’s simply nature!—a park, a forest, a beach …

Now, what if we visualised our planet as a living person? Forests are, of course, its lungs. Rivers and water streams are arteries carrying blood and nutrients. Wetlands are kidneys that serve as natural filters removing waste. And, as Sylvia Earle put it so eloquently yesterday, the oceans are the “blue heart” of our planet.

The point is, if we are to improve the state of our planet, then, just as in the medical world, we need to have the best diagnostics, the best treatments, and the best doctors who are talking to one another and learning together.

A Barometer of Life

This is where environmental data come in—and that’s why this summit is so important. We must invest in better and greater knowledge, make it more applied and accessible, and make better use of what we have. For example, US$60 million could transform the IUCN Red List into a true Barometer of Life, and triple the number of species currently assessed, to 160,000, within five years. Most importantly, this sample of species would be representative of biodiversity as a whole. Such a barometer would be one of the best investments for the good of humanity.

We all know people who depend on data for their work. If you are a pilot and you don’t read your dashboard, you’re in for a crash landing. If you are an entrepreneur and you ignore the signs of an impending crisis, you are in for bankruptcy. If you are a politician who is blind to the concerns of your people, then sooner or later you’ll find yourself out of power.

But for some reason, when it comes to our planet, we just don’t seem to get the message. We’re not paying attention to the symptoms we already feel today—the “dead zones” off our coasts, “silent forests” where birdsong is no longer heard, deserts that have turned into dust bowls. Could it be a case of the more we know, the less we care? Or is it that we don’t yet know how to make data and information relevant to others, beyond the environmental community?

Today, we have overwhelming scientific and, increasingly, economic evidence that our very survival on this planet is not possible without the life-support services provided by nature: food, water, medicine, shelter, clean air. At least 14 per cent of birds, 22 per cent of the world’s mammals and 4 per cent of amphibians that appear on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species are used for food, medicine, and other essential purposes.

And there are about ninety thousand unknown plants, some of which could transform food production, medical research and so on, if they don’t become extinct before we discover them. In the latest update of the IUCN Red List, the tree known as Taxus contorta, or Himalayan yew, moved sharply from the vulnerable to the endangered category. It has lost at least half of its range in India, Pakistan, Nepal, Tibet, and Afghanistan. The reason? Its bark is used to produce Taxol, a chemotherapy drug. However, the harvesting of the bark kills the tree. But it doesn’t have to be this way: it is possible to extract Taxol from clippings, so harvesting, if properly done, can save the tree.

The Western Black Rhino has now been officially declared extinct, and two other rhino species—the Northern White Rhino and the Javan Rhino—are teetering on the brink of extinction. The main reason is poaching and illegal trade, driven by the false belief that rhino horn can cure cancer. The multilateral Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, or CITES, tells us that rhino horn is now worth more than the price of gold on the black market.

This is where the money question comes in. And we’re not talking dirty money from the illegal wildlife trade. We’re talking about valuing the gifts of nature which we have taken for granted for too long. Thanks to the landmark study TEEB, The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (http://www.teebweb.org/), we know how much we benefit from the earth’s living riches, and, sadly, how much we lose. For example, more than one-quarter of modern medicines come from tropical forest plants and are worth an estimated US$108 billion a year. On the other hand, deforestation alone costs our planet US$4.5 trillion every year, dwarfing the losses from the current economic and financial crisis. TEEB has helped make the invisible visible by calculating the value of natural capital.

Sharing the Planet

But apart from the economic argument, there is simple comfort in knowing that we share our planet with an amazing diversity of other creatures. Perhaps the way to make knowledge more meaningful is to engage people outside the conservation world, first by sharing the wonders of nature with them, then letting them know that we might risk losing all that nature gives us, and that there will be no turning back from that loss.

IUCN has been working on conserving nature and natural resources for more than sixty years. And while our community has grown larger and stronger, there are still a lot of people who just don’t know that this is important and don’t yet have access to the information that will make them stand up and take action.

Here we can take advantage of the rapidly expanding universe of technology in connecting us back to Earth. With technology, our common Eye on Earth is now able to see and use data overlays on nature, covering the globe—both land and sea. IUCN aims to integrate the spatial information in the Red List of Threatened Species and the World Database on Protected Areas with a new Red List of Ecosystems and maps of key biodiversity areas. This makes it possible to make enlightened decisions on the use of these data for the conservation of nature.

I started with a quiz; let me end with a poll. Please raise your hand if you:

Did a Google search in the last week?

Picked up a dictionary or an encyclopaedia in the last month?

Ever used the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species?

Well, I think it is clear from the results of this mini-poll that we have to use biodiversity knowledge in new and different ways. And, increasingly, conservation organisations are doing just that—using everything from phone apps and cameras to social media and Wikipedia to get people on board conservation and help them make better choices.

This brings me to my last, and perhaps most important, point:

We do not need all the knowledge about all the 8.7 million species living on our planet before we take action. We need to listen to what the data we already have are telling us.

We can, and in fact we must, prevent the extinction of threatened species. We can, and must, reverse the loss of valuable ecosystems that sustain all life on Earth.

The only thing we cannot do is say “we didn’t know”.

Thank you for your attention.