New Zealand Environment in Danger, Two-Thirds of Ecosystems Face Risk of Collapse - Report
A fresh report by the New Zealand's Environment Ministry and Statistics New Zealand said on Thursday that the country's environment was in danger, with almost two-thirds of the country's rare ecosystems being under threat of collapse, thousands of species facing extinction risks and waterways being polluted
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 18th April, 2019) A fresh report by the New Zealand's Environment Ministry and Statistics New Zealand said on Thursday that the country's environment was in danger, with almost two-thirds of the country's rare ecosystems being under threat of collapse, thousands of species facing extinction risks and waterways being polluted.
The three-yearly report, entitled Environment Aotearoa, provided details on a number of threats that New Zealand's environment faced, such as warming climate, loss of productive land over urban expansion, rivers that were unsafe for swimming, and 90 percent of all seabirds, 84 percent of reptiles, 76 percent of freshwater fish and 74 percent of terrestrial birds at risk of extinction.
"Our unique native biodiversity is under significant pressure from introduced species, pollution, physical changes to our landscapes and coast, harvesting of wild species and other factors. Almost 4,000 of our native species are currently threatened with or at risk of extinction," the report read.
The authors of the report claimed that the loss of biodiversity could damage cultural connection, result in the lack of wild food sources and also affect "background supporting processes," such as soil formation.
"Logging native forests, draining wetlands and clearing land have degraded a range of benefits provided by native vegetation, accelerated our naturally high rates of soil loss and affected our waterways," the report added.
The authors of the 128-page report suggested that air and water pollution could affect both human and environment health, adding that it was currently impossible to fully understand the impact of urban pollution, given limited knowledge of the full range of its sources.
The Environment Ministry of New Zealand called for the expansion of scientific knowledge in order to be "better equipped" to understand the scale of damage people were causing to the environment and to come up with a response.