2010-03-11

New Report Details Accelerated Extinction In England

Natural England, the government's agency responsible for the countryside, said the biggest national study of threats to biodiversity has found that of nearly 500 species that had died out in England, all but a dozen did so in the last two centuries.

The high rate at which species are being lost is set to continue. The report shows that almost 1,000 other species face "severe" threats from the same problems that drove the others to extinction – hunting, pollution, development, poor land management, invasive species and now in addition accelerated climate change.

The rate of extinction is so hight that more than two animals and plants a year are becoming extinct in England and hundreds more are severely threatened.

Source: The Guardian

The Report - Lost Life - is available here from Natural England