Geneva - Research has found that habitat destruction and to a lesser extent over-hunting are putting life on earth "under a serious threat," according to a new report issued Thursday by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. The analysis of the Red List of Threatened Species, conducted every four years, comes ahead of an international deadline next year for governments to determine how successful they were in reducing biodiversity loss.
A minimum of 16,928 species are threatened with extinction, the IUCN said, calling the number "a gross underestimate" that only provides a "snapshot" of the declining situation.
The report only analysed 2.7 per cent of the 1.8 million described species, and more research was expected to produce even more dire figures.
The report looked at various types of life on land and in the oceans, including fish, mammals, birds and amphibians.
"For all four groups we assessed, it is getting worse in terms of biodiversity," Jean-Christophe Vie, editor of the report, said in a telephone interview.
He noted that when governments took concrete steps toward conservation, they were generally able to record successes.
Habitat destruction was the main issue causing species to enter the endangered lists and in some cases leading to their extinction, the report showed.
Vie noted that though his organization and others had raised "alarm flags," deforestation was continuing at an accelerated pace, particularly in South-East Asia.
Another major contributor to the growing threats to many types of wildlife was overuse, such as overfishing and over-hunting.
"People now live in cities and don't realize how much they require from nature for survival," said Vie, adding that "in the end the people who change things are the consumers."
While climate change was having only a minimal impact on biodiversity, needed for a healthy ecosystem, the IUCN report stated that in the near future this was likely to change.
The report found that a significant proportion of species that are currently not threatened with extinction are susceptible to climate change and could find themselves struggling to survive in the future.
Conservationists say that extinction rates in recent decades have significantly surpassed the natural levels expected with evolution, causing their concern.
