Anthropocene

• Anthropocene


  The current geological epoch, viewed as the period during which human activity has been the dominant influence on climate and the environment
• Sir David Attenborough: 'We have to learn to live with nature, rather than against it'
• Plastics


  1945
• The exponential increase in microplastic deposition in sediment is significantly correlated with the exponential increase in worldwide plastic production over the same time period (1945–2010)
• Model results for global count density in four size classes of plastics


  • 0.33-1mm size class
  • Bo Eide & Plymouth Marine Lab
  • Seattle Aquarium
• More than 5 trillion plastic pieces weighing over 250,000 tons afloat at sea
• Global map of cumulative human impact across 20 ocean ecosystem types


  • Highly impacted regions in the Eastern Caribbean, the North Sea, Japanese waters
  • One of the least impacted regions is northern Australia and the Torres Strait

  
• Threats to global food security

  • world population growth
  • increased demand for food
  • food prices
  • Loss in variety of agricultural plant species
  • increase in water scarcity
  • limitation of the availability of land
  • food losses and food waste
• Ocean acidification


  Increased emissions of CO2 from burning fossil fuels (ancient CO2 stores) causes decrease in pH, dissolution of calcium carbonate shells
• Modelled decrease in Aragonite deposits (a form of calcium carbonate)
• Biodiversity


  • Species richness and abundance, species numbers
  • Biodiversity's function for human well-being includes pollination and biomass provision
• Land use is one of the main causes of terrestrial biodiversity loss
• IPBES


  An intergovernmental organization established to improve the interface between science and policy on issues of biodiversity and ecosystem services
• 15,000 research outputs evaluated
• 2mya ago Homo evolved and began to occupy large-carnivore niche in Africa


  After 60,000yrs, Homo began migrating and 2/3rd of all large carnivores became extinct
• Extinction exceeds historical rates by 100 to 1,000-fold
• Vertebrate extinctions correlate with invertebrate extinctions
• Prehistoric extinctions are mostly an outcome of overhunting


  • New Zealand Moa (1400ya)
  • Mauritius Dodo (1662)
• Solenopsis geminata is an accidentally introduced ant species in the Galapagos islands


  • Attacks nests and hatchlings of giant tortoises
  • Eradication measures have failed
• 90% of the 750 native Hawaiian snails have become extinct


  • Predation by introduced rosy wolfsnail (1955) native to the US
  • Habitat loss by introduced goats
• 363 vertebrates became extinct since 1500CE (common era)
• Sharp incline of the rate of extinctions since the industrialization (1800)
• The grey line is the historical extinction rate through the fossil record
• Recent trends show a high percent of species threatened in birds, mammals, and amphibians, compared with other groups of organisms that have been systematically assessed
• Global biomass of terrestrial vertebrates is estimated at 0.17 Gt (Gigatonnes)
• Breakdown of global biomass of terrestrial vertebrates

  • 59% livestock
  • 36% living human beings
  • 5% wild mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians
• Relationship between land use and species richness and abundance
• Data from "PREDICTS" database - Projecting Responses of Ecological Diversity In Changing Terrestrial Systems
• The PREDICTS database contains over 2.5 million biodiversity records from over 21,000 sites, covering more than 38,000 species
• The magnitude of loss the planet can support before global ecosystems (at biome scale) collapse is modelled around 20%
• Globally, average local abundance is currently at 84.6%, corresponding to a 15.4% loss
• Mitigation strategies: Growth of global protected areas - Around 17% protected land surface by 2020
• Recent conservation action has buffered extinctions by 18%
• Large species recovering in Western Europe, mostly due to rewilding of former agricultural landscapes
• Amazon deforestation has slowed since 2004, but recent politically / economically / climate change motivated uptick in deforestation and wildfires
• Intense captive-breeding efforts helped some keystone species to recover in number, but not genetic diversity, leading to problems with inbreeding
• Project Isabela, the world's largest island restoration effort to date, removed >140,000 goats from >500,000 ha for a cost of US$10.5 million from the Galapagos islands
• Populations of giant tortoises in the Galapagos islands are recovering (15 to 1,000 individuals of some species)
• The 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) of the UN are a universal call to action to end poverty, protect the planet and improve the lives and prospects of everyone, everywhere
• The Paris Climate Agreement (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) is a landmark agreement to combat climate change and to accelerate and intensify the actions and investments needed for a sustainable low carbon future