Aconcerning report from the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services from 2019 said that one million plant and animal species worldwide are threatened with extinction.
The organization said the decline of nature is happening at a rate “unprecedented in human history,” with invasive species, global heating, and pollution all said to be responsible for this rapid deterioration of the natural world, among other factors.
To observe the threat up close, Vox’s Benji Jones went to Hawai’i, which he noted has been dubbed “the extinction capital of the world.”
What’s happening?
Human-related actions are accelerating the threat to habitats and ecosystems all over the world.
Land use from agriculture, dirty-fuel pollution, and rising ocean temperatures and water levels are among the reasons for such worrying declines in species populations.
Jones observed that Hawai’i was once an island group where creatures “evolved in isolation,” but settlers brought along foreign plants and animals that the native species have struggled to deal with.
In 2023, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service removed 21 species from its endangered species list because of extinction. Among them were eight species of Hawaiian birds, including the poʻouli, the Molokai creeper, and the Bridled white-eye.
Of the 1,670 species and subspecies on the organization’s Endangered Species Act, Vox analysis found nearly a third of them are found in Hawai’i.