Today’s (Friday 9 December) update to the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species™ highlights a barrage of threats affecting marine species, including illegal and unsustainable fishing, pollution, climate change and disease. Populations of dugongs – large herbivorous marine mammals – and 44% of all abalone shellfish species enter the IUCN Red List as threatened with extinction; the pillar coral has deteriorated to Critically Endangered due to accumulated pressures.
The IUCN Red List now includes 150,388 species, of which 42,108 are threatened with extinction. Over 1,550 of the 17,903 marine animals and plants assessed are at risk of extinction, with climate change impacting at least 41% of threatened marine species.
“Today’s IUCN Red List update reveals a perfect storm of unsustainable human activity decimating marine life around the globe. As the world looks to the ongoing UN biodiversity conference to set the course for nature recovery, we simply cannot afford to fail,” said Dr Bruno Oberle, IUCN Director General. “We urgently need to address the linked climate and biodiversity crises, with profound changes to our economic systems, or we risk losing the crucial benefits the oceans provide us with.”
Abalone species are sold as some of the world’s most expensive seafood, with unsustainable extraction and poaching primary threats compounded by climate change, disease and pollution. Twenty of the world’s 54 abalone species are now threatened with extinction, according to the first global Red List assessment of these species.
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Posted On: 12/12/2022