i thought you all would like to read this.

regards,

Deborah Wisti-Peterson email:nyneve at u.washington.edu
Department of Zoology, University of Washington, Seattle, Wash, USA
Visit me on the web: http://students.washington.edu/~nyneve/
<><><>Graduate School: it's not just a job, it's an indenture!<><><>

The Dawn of a New Mesozoic Era
by Kristen Philipkoski
3:00 a.m. 3.Aug.99.PDT

New data on biodiversity show that, if humans don't make some changes,
two-thirds of the world's species could face the fate of dinosaurs
within 100 years.

Scientists at the International Botanical Congress in St. Louis said
humans had abused the earth so effectively that extinction rates are
close to that of previous mass extinctions in geologic history. The
IBC, which convenes every six years, gathered together more than 4,000
experts in botany, mycology, plant ecology, horticulture, and
agriculture from around the world to discuss the latest developments
in the plant sciences.

"It's the same as in a zoo. If a few individuals of some species are
genetically not very variable they could be hit by disease much more
easily," said Peter Raven, director of the Missouri Botanical Garden,
and a plant conservation expert.

Alan Thornhill, executive director of the Center for Conservation
Biology Network, an organization not affiliated with the IBC, echoed
Raven's pessimism.

With world population threatening to double to 12 billion in the next
40 years, Thornhill said humans -- and too many of them -- are to
blame for the precipitous changes in biodiversity.

"The question is, Is that what we want? How many people do we want on
this planet?"

Controlling food production could be one way of controlling the
population, according to Thornhill. "Every year we produce more than
we did last year, and every year the population gets larger. In any
ecological system, more food equals more individuals."

Research presented at the conference predicted that between one-third
and two-thirds of all plants and animals -- most of them in the
tropics -- will die during the second half of the next century. If
current trends continue, only 5 percent of the earth's tropical
forests will remain in 50 years, the data showed.

The loss would equal that of the last major extinction at the end of
the Cretaceous Period and the Mesozoic Era, when the last of the
dinosaurs died off.

About 30 percent of the earth's 300,000 species are in protected
cultivation in botanical gardens around the world, Raven said. But
society also needs to protect plants in the wild.

"The point is that many of the species in cultivation are in only one
small patch. That may be the only patch of cultivation of that species
anywhere in the world," he said.

Medicinal plants are particularly important, Raven said.

For example, rosy periwinkle, a plant native only to Madagascar, is
the source of a drug that makes Eli Lilly US$130 million per year. The
drug shot increases the survival rate for childhood leukemia from one
in 20 to 19 in 20.

"Ninety percent of the natural vegetation of Madagascar has already
been destroyed," Raven said. "With that degree of destruction, the
chance of [rosy periwinkle] surviving is really minimal."

Raven had several suggestions in his speech to the conference,
including the establishment of a new United Nations agency that would
monitor plants, detect endangered species, and take steps to conserve
them.

He also recommended greater financial support for ongoing research
into plant population biology and reproduction.

The money should come from the Global Environment Facility Fund,
established by the World Bank, Raven said. The money could be used to
make plant information available on the Internet, and a census of
plants in each country would keep researchers informed about the
status of different species.

"While I don't disagree with any of his points, and think these issues
are certainly important, they are in no way enough," Thornhill said.

"I would suggest that these are all appropriate responses to the
ailment, but what we need is to deal with the agent of the disease:
humans. This doesn't make me a very popular ecologist, but humans are
turning the biomass of the planet into human mass, and in so doing,
depleting the diversity of the planet."

Raven agreed with Thornhill that overpopulation is the root of the
problem.

"In the broader sense, you can't conserve anything without a
sustainable world," Raven said.

The United States is particularly guilty of wasting resources,
Thornhill said. With a fraction of the population of China, the two
countries consume virtually the same amount of energy, food, and
water.

"It's easy to point the finger and say 'They're reproducing too much,'
but we're wasting too much," Thornhill said.

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