EJ Milner-Gulland - Land conversion and the end of the wild

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EJ Milner-Gulland, Tasso Leventis Professor of Biodiversity at the University of Oxford, discusses the damage to our ecosystems and how we can fix it.

About EJ Milner-Gulland

"I’m Tasso Leventis Professor of Biodiversity at the University of Oxford and Director of the Interdisciplinary Centre for Conservation Science.

My research is about the conservation of nature, and my passion is to try and find a way for humanity, nature and wildlife to live together sustainably."

A world under threat

Our main conservation challenges are trying to avoid the threats that we face all around the world. Interestingly, we can see different changes in species loss in different parts of the world, but the threats are pretty consistent across the whole world.

Around 50% of species that are under threat are there because of various kinds of land conversion. For about a quarter, it’s over-exploitation: and a lot of that is trees and fish, not just the things you typically think of as conservation-dependent. Then there are other factors like invasive species and pollution.

Interestingly, climate change is the main driver for only around 5 to 10% of threatened species at the moment, but obviously that is going to continue.

Key Points

• Right now, only 5 to 10% of threatened species are endangered due to climate change, but this will increase.
• Land conversion is the main reason that the world has lost more than two-thirds of its wild terrestrial vertebrates since 1970.
• New ecosystems and groups of species will emerge over the coming decades.
• When we value some species over others, we need to remember that it’s our construction. It’s not how nature actually works.