Pro Natura warns of loss of diversity

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Pro Natura drew attention to the problem with its campaign in Bern on Monday on the occasion of the International Day of Biodiversity. The organization set up huge dominoes with pictures of local animal and plant species on the Bundesplatz and let it drop symbolically from five to twelve.

“With each species falling, natural cycles become weaker until the species that triggered the impact collapses: humans,” Pro Natura wrote in a press release. The current situation requires a wake-up call.

Friedrich Wulf, international biodiversity policy expert at Pro Natura, said in the statement that when it comes to nature protection, Switzerland is at the bottom of the list of OECD countries. “We have the highest number of endangered species and the smallest proportion of strictly protected land at just 6.6 percent.”

“We are too slow, we have missed a lot already,” said Ursula Schneider Schüttel, Member of the Freiburg SP National Assembly, President of Pro Natura. Therefore, biodiversity should become a central issue in the national elections in the fall.

If politicians do not take countermeasures, the organization expects serious consequences. The biodiversity crisis threatens agriculture, which, among other things, depends on pollinating insects. In addition, the psychological well-being of people depends on an undisturbed nature.

Shortly before the campaign, the Federal Environment Agency (FOEN) published red lists of endangered animal and plant species for the first time since 2011. As such, six percent of all species are threatened with extinction and 11 percent are endangered. 16% are considered vulnerable. Bafu has been seeing progress in recent years. But he acknowledged on Monday that these were not enough to reverse the trend.

(SDA)

Source : Blick