Wilderness disappearing at 'staggering' rate

Unrelenting human expansion and its accompanying agriculture, logging and mining have resulted in the loss of about 10 percent of wilderness regions globally in the past two decades, researchers said on Thursday. A new study in the journal Current Biology raised concerns for these vital areas, which form the foundation for ecosystems - particularly in the places that have lost the most: the Amazon rainforest and Central Africa.

Researchers defined "wilderness" as "biologically and ecologically intact landscapes free of any significant human disturbance." They mapped existing areas, and compared that with an image from the 1990s to find that about 3.5 million square kilometers, or almost 10 percent of pristine space, had disappeared in the past two decades.

"The amount of wilderness loss in just two decades is staggering," said study co-author Oscar Venter, of Canada's University of Northern British Columbia.

'Disaster for conservation'

Wilderness - most of it in Australia, North America, North Asia and North Africa - currently totals 30.1 million square kilometers (11.6 million square miles), or 20 percent of the world's land area. South America has experienced a 30 percent decline in wilderness, and Africa has lost 14 percent.

"If we don't act soon, there will only be tiny remnants of wilderness around the planet, and this is a disaster for conservation, for climate change and for some of the most vulnerable human communities on the planet," lead author James Watson, a researcher at the University of Queensland in Australia, told the AFP news agency. "It is really important - and it is profound that we are losing it at such a rapid rate."

Watson said the loss resulted from increased human expansion and added that little time remained to save the dwindling natural space. He called on the United Nations and world governments to do more to protect globally significant wilderness areas.

"This is incredibly sad because we can't offset or restore these places," Watson said. "Once they are gone, they are gone - and this has shocking implications for biodiversity, for climate change and for the most imperiled biodiversity on the planet."

He added: "We need to focus on quality of habitat and keeping some places on Earth that are largely untouched by us. We are running out of time and we are running out of space. If society asked the question 'What does nature need?' these places would become a global priority for environmental action."

mkg/sms (Reuters, AFP)