The vanishing wild | 60 Minutes Archives

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go back In what year will the human population grow too large for the Earth to sustain? The answer is around 1970, according to research by the World Wildlife Fund. In 1970, the planet's 3 and 5 billion inhabitants were sustainable, but on this New Year's Day the population is 8 billion today,

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plants and animals are running out of places to live. The scientists you're about to meet say the Earth is suffering a mass extinction crisis on a scale not seen since the dinosaurs. We are going to show you a possible solution. but first take a look at how humanity is already suffering from the disappearance of nature in Washington state.

The Salish Sea helped feed the world with this climate and how things feel once I get here, it's time to fish, that's what it feels like as a commercial fisherman. Dana Wilson supported a family in the legendary salmon wealth of the Salish Sea. He remembers the propellers churning the water off Blaine Washington and the cranes fighting for the state's $200 million in annual cash that used to be a buying station that no longer buys. Furthermore, that building over there used to buy salmon they don't buy salmon anymore, it's just not here in 1991, a species of salmon was in danger of extinction today, 14 salmon stocks are sinking, they have been displaced from the rivers by habitat destruction warming and pollution Dana Wilson used to fish all summer today a conservation authority grants him a fleeting permit to cast a net there was a season there was a season now there's a day there's a day and sometimes it's hours sometimes you can have 12 hours 16 hours into that we are here the

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disappearance spoiled a way of life that began with the native tribes a thousand years ago I don't remember anyone doing anything other than fishing for salmon fisherman Armando bionas is a member of the lummy tribe with calls yes salmon people he didn't imagine Rich Harvest would end up with his five fishing boats suddenly you're trying to figure out how I'm going to earn that paycheck for my family well for me it was like well I have a backup for a backup for a backup for a backup Bonus endorsements include their new food truck switching to crabbing and Cannabis Farm Consulting.

Their struggle to adapt is repeated throughout the world. A World Wildlife Fund study says that over the past 50 years, global wildlife abundance has collapsed by 69%, largely for the same reason: too many people, too much consumption and growth. Mania at the age of 90. Biologist Paul Erick may have lived long enough to see some of his dire prophecies come true. to say that humanity is not sustainable, oh humanity is not sustainable, able to maintain our lifestyle, yours and mine, basically for the entire planet, you would need five more Earths, it is not clear where they will come from just in terms of the resources that would be required in the systems that support our lives, which of course are the biodiversity that we are eliminating.

Humanity is busy sitting on a branch we're cutting off in 1968, according to a biology professor at Stanford. you became an apocalyptic celebrity with a best seller that predicted the collapse of nature when the population bomb exploded you were described as an alarmist I was alarmed I am still alarmed all my colleagues are alarmed the alarm that sounded erck in '68 warned that overpopulation would trigger a famine generalization was wrong that the Green Revolution fed the world but he also wrote in '68 that the heat of greenhouse gases would melt the polar ice and Humanity would overwhelm the wild nature today humans have taken over 70% of the land and 70% of the planet's fresh water the extinction rate is extraordinarily high now and is increasing every time we know that the extinction rate is extraordinarily high due to a study of the fossil record by biologist Tony Barnoski's Stanford colleague erick, the data is rock solid, I don't think so.

You will find a scientist who will say that we are not in an extinction crisis. Barnowski's research suggests that the current rate of extinction is up to 100 times faster than is typical in the nearly 4 billion year history of life. These peaks represent the few times life collapsed globally and the last one was the dinosaurs 66 million years ago. There are five times in Earth's history where we had mass extinctions and by mass extinctions I mean, at least 75%, 3/4 of the known species are disappearing from the face of the Earth now. We are witnessing what many people call the sixth mass extinction, in which the same thing could happen on our watch.

It is a horrible state of the planet when the common species, the ubiquitous species that we know, are declining. Tony Barn's colleague on The Extinction Study is his wife, biologist Liz Hadley, faculty director of Stanford's Jasper Ridge Research Reserve in California, you know, I see it in my mind and it's a really sad state of affairs. . If you spend any time in California, you know, the loss of water, the loss of water. It means there are dead salmon that you see in the river right before your eyes, but it also means the disappearance of those birds that depend on salmon fishing.

Eagles, uh, means you know things like minks and otters that depend on fish. It means that our habitats that we are used to are forests, that you know that 3,000 year old forests are going to disappear, which means silence and it means some very catastrophic events because it is happening very quickly, it means that you look out the window and 3/4 of What you think. It should be that it doesn't exist anymore, this is what mass extinction looks like, what we see only in California, you know, the loss of our iconic state symbols, we don't have any more grizzly bears in California, the only grizzly bears in California are in the state flag. our mammal state and they are no longer here it is too much to say that we are killing the planet no, I would say it is too much to say that we are killing the planet because the planet is going to be fine as we do what we are doing is killing our way of life, The worst of the carnage occurs in Latin America, where the World Wildlife Fund study says wildlife abundance has fallen 94% since 1970, but it was also in Latin America where we found the possibility of continue after this Mexican ecologist Herard Calios is one of the world's leading scientists on extinction.

He told us that the only solution is to save the third of the Earth that remains wild to prove it. He is conducting a 3,000 square mile experiment on the kicl. Biosphere Reserve near Guatemala. He is paying family farmers to stop cutting down the forest. We will pay each family a certain amount of money which is more than what they will get from cutting down the forest if they protect it and how much they will pay each year. Oh, for example, each family here will receive about $1000 more than enough to make up for lost farmland. In total, the payments amount to $1.5 million a year, or about $2,000 per square mile.

The bill is paid through the charity of wealthy donors. The investment to Protect What Remains is, I mean, really small. The reward for that investment is being collected in the jungle chambers of Cavalo. 30 years ago, the jaguar was almost extinct in Mexico. Now Sealo says about 600 have been recovered on the reservation. There are other places where there are reserves around the world where they have been able to increase populations of certain species, but I wonder if all these small success stories are enough to prevent mass extinction, all the great success we have in protecting forests and the recovery of animals such as tigers in India.

The jagar in Mexico, the elephants in Botswana, etc., are incredible, amazing successes, but there are like grains of sand on a beach and to really have a big impact, we need to increase this 10,000 times, so they are important because we They give hope, but they are. completely insufficient to address climate change so what should the world do? What we will have to do is really understand that climate change and the extinction of species are a threat to humanity and then put all the machinery of political, economic and social society towards finding solutions to the problems finding solutions to the problems was the goal two weeks ago at the UN biodiversity conference where nations agreed to conservation goals, but at the same meeting in 2010 those nations agreed to limit the destruction of the Earth by 2020 and not one of those goals were met despite from thousands of studies, including the ongoing research of Stanford biologist Paul Erick.

You know there is no political will to do any of the things you recommend. I know that there is no political will to do any of the things that I am concerned about exactly why I and the vast majority of my colleagues think that we have already achieved it, that the next few decades will be the end of the type of civilization to which the one we are used to in the 50 years since erck demographic bomb The feast of humanity's resources has tripled, we are already consuming 175% of what the Earth can regenerate and we consider that half of humanity, around 4 billion, live on less than 10 dollars a day they aspire to have cars, air conditioning and a rich diet but they won Not be fed by Washington Salish Sea fishermen, including Armando Bionis, the tribe has been fishing for salmon here for hundreds of years, yes, and your generation is seeing the end of that.

It's getting harder and harder. I hate to say I don't want to. Say it's the end, why do you feel so emotionally attached to this? It's all we know. I'm lucky to know where. I know a lot of different things. I have done many different things in my life. um. We've gotten good at evolving and changing, but not everyone here is built like that and for some of us, this is what you know, all you know, the five mass extinctions of the ancient past were caused by natural calamities, volcanoes and an asteroid Today, yes, Science is right.

Humanity may have to survive a sixth mass extinction in a world of its own creation.