"Habitats are cut down, ploughed up, paved over, over-grazed and poisoned with radiation. They are being coated with pesticides and cloaked with toxic chemicals, flooded and drained, and drenched with acid rain. Waste is buried in them and oil dumped on them. Wildlife is being hunted down and the seas are being fished out. Even the global climate is being changed..."

Scientists estimate that there are 10 - 100 million species on the planet. While we now have names for approximately 2 million of these species, we have little idea how they function, how they interact or the roles that they individually and collectively play in maintaining the biosphere.

EXTINCT: Woodland Caribou, Dusky Seaside Sparrow, California Grizzly, Relic Leopard Frog ENDANGERED: Beluga Whale, Panda Bear, Grey Wolf, Winter-run Chinook

As human activities, consumption and population size continue to increase, it is expected that half of the Earth's species are likely to disappear within the next seventy-five years.

It is not only wild species that are in danger. Wild species play a vital role in maintianing the earth's ecological functions -- the very air we breathe and the water we drink.

"An apt analogy for this problem is a man prying rivets out of the wing of an airplane so that he can sell the rivets--he sees no reason to worry about the consequences of his action since he has already removed numerous rivets from the wing with no ill effect." - Walter Reid, Keeping Options Alive: the scientific basis for conserving biodiversity, (World Resources Institute), 1989 p.55.

HOW IS BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY BEING LOST?

By far, the most important causes in the current loss of biodiversity are the destruction and alteration of habitats. The United Nations reports that 80% of species decline is a result of habitat destruction.

Because of the worldwide loss or conversion of habitats that has already taken place, tens of thousands of species are already committed to extinction.

Other major contributors include: the direct exploitation of plants, forests and wildlife, the introduction of species into areas where they do not naturally occur, and pollution. The alteration of the atmosphere, and hence global climate, will likely be an important component in the very near future. Though individually each of these components are important, they do not operate in isolation. All of them combine, interact, and feed back upon each other to produce a myriad of greater, accelerated and cascading effects. Ultimately, we are playing roulette with the Earth's living systems, the end result of which may be a planet unsuitable for human life as we currently know it.

GREENPEACE CAMPAIGNS

Greenpeace campaigns around the world against pollution, nuclear energy and weapons, and for a change in practices and activities which lead to alterations in the atmosphere. Within our International Biodiversity Campaign, our work is focussed on key areas involving habitat destruction, the direct exploitation of species and systems, and the genetic manipulation of natural biodiversity.

Forests

"Clearcutting causes two kinds of fundamental damage, one long-lasting, the other permanent. The long-lasting damage is to the soil, the permanent damage is to biological diversity." Dr. C. Pielou, Professor Mathematical Ecology, ret.

Although they comprise only 30 per cent of the global land area, forests are home to the majority of the Earth's species. However, vast segments of the world's forests have already been destroyed, including virtually all of Europe's original old growth forest and close to half of all tropical rainforests. Still the onslaught continues, through destructive logging for wood and paper production, wholesale clearing for agriculture, urban development and fuelwood, and more recently as a result of pollution. Tropical rainforests alone are being reduced at a rate equivalent to an area the size of the Netherlands and Switzerland each year.

In Brazil an acre of rainforest is destroyed every 9 seconds. In Canada an acre of ancient forests is clearcut every 12 seconds. Worldwide 76% of the planet's original primary forests have already been destroyed or degraded.

The effects are devastating. Anywhere between 40,000 and 60,000 unique types of forest-dependent plant, animal and insect species are becoming extinct annually. Meanwhile, the livelihoods and cultures of numerous indigenous forest- dwelling peoples and the economies of many forest-dependent communities are also in danger of completely disappearing.

Greenpeace is working worldwide to seek protection and restoration of the planet's remaining forests and their associated biodiversity. We have developed guidelines for environmentally and socially responsible forest use and are extensively campaigning for their adoption by governments, industry and international regulatory organisations. Greenpeace is advocating a ban on the further development of monoculture plantations, on clearcutting and predatory logging, and on the use of chemical pesticides and fertilisers. At the same time, the organisation is urging a reduction in the manufacture of wood and paper products and promoting the use of non-tree fibres and products which are known to be environmentally and socially responsible. As part of this process, we are supporting the struggles of indigenous peoples in securing land rights and the protection of their forests from destructive activities.

Fisheries

The oceans cover seventy-one per cent of the planet's surface. Because of their size, humans have regarded them as bottomless receptacles for waste and infinite reservoirs of natural resources. Both assumptions are wrong, and as a result of human activities, the oceans' productivity and diversity are in decline.

A prime example is the commercial fishing industry. Increased market demand, modern technology and destructive fishing practices have led to the decimation of fish and shellfish stocks around theworld. Over 70 per cent of global fish stocks are considered heavily, fully or over-exploited. Many are seriously depleted, while others have completely collapsed.

In 1992, in a desperate effort to protect what remained of the overfished and collapsing cod stocks off the coast of Newfoundland the Canadian government closed the fishery. Over 30,000 people were thrown out of work

The damage caused by the commercial fishing industry includes the incidental catch, entanglement and mortality of non- target fish, marine mammals, seabirds and sea turtles; habitat destruction -- for example, through damage to the seabed caused by bottom trawls; reduced food for marine mammals and seabirds; and the massive disruption of food webs.

To avoid the continued collapse of fish stocks, and to facilitate the recovery of depleted populations, Greenpeace is actively promoting:

* A reduction in the size and capacity of fishing fleets, and the amount of fish taken.

* The end of the use of public money to subsidise the growth and operations of the fishing industry.

* The development and implementation of fishing gear and methods to eliminate the bycatch of marine mammals, seabirds, sea turtles, non-target and underage fish and other marine wildlife.

* Adoption of a precautionary approach to the exploitation of the world's fish stocks.

Commercial Whaling

Over the centuries, commercial whaling has devastated whale populations, often to the point of extinction. Decades later, many populations still show no apparent signs of recovery. Some, such as the right whales of the Northwest Atlantic, are now facing additional pressures, including entanglement in nets, habitat disturbance, contamination by pollutants and even collisions with ships. Despite its tragic history and an International Whaling Commision (IWC) ban, commercial whaling continues under the guise of "scientific research" and through a loophole which allows countries to bypass IWC decisions. Meanwhile, pressure is mounting from whaling nations for the ban to be overturned and for full-scale commercial whaling to be resumed.

There is only one sure way to prevent whale populations being over-exploited by commercial whaling, and that is to ensure that the ban on commercial whaling remains in place and is properly enforced. Loopholes which allow whaling to masquerade as "scientific research" should be closed. There should be a programme of non-lethal research on whale populations and their environment, especially in areas set aside for whales' complete protection, such as the Indian Ocean and Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuaries, to monitor the recovery of these populations and their interaction with the changing ocean environment.

Genetic Engineering

Genetic engineering poses a serious threat to the earth's biodiversity. Genetic engineering allows genes to be transferred between completely unrelated species. Human genes have been moved into fish; bacterial and animal genes into plants.

Multinational companies at the forefront of developing genetically-engineered versions of plants and crops now have the go-ahead to market their first products. Genetically- engineered tomatoes are on supermarket shelves in the USA, and farmers in the US and Europe will soon be able to buy genetically engineered tobacco, cotton, corn and oilseed rape.

The claim is that such "transgenic" crops will produce healthier foods, an end to the reliance on chemical fertilizers and pesticides, and a solution to world hunger. In reality, such crops are likely to prolong, rather than reduce, agriculture's reliance on chemicals. Many of the first generation of engineered crops are herbicide resistant, developed so that chemical weed killers can be used on them with impunity. Most of the world's hungry are too poor to buy traditionally-bred crops, much less the expensive products of biotechnology.

The industry is developing rapidly, despite having virtually no idea of the ultimate environmental consequences. Transgenic organisms could behave in unexpected ways and become pests themselves; for example, transgenic crops could become troublesome weeds. The"foreign" gene could be transferred to a wild relative through pollen spread and fundamentally alter the genetic material of natural organisms.

These impacts, together with the monocultures of "improved" crops that companies will be seeking to establish, will reduce genetic and biological diversity. In addition, some of these genetically-engineered organisms will include virus genes, which could lead to the creation of new viruses and the spread of new diseases.

The biotechnology industry is also demanding patent protection for its "inventions." Patents on genes and living material give control over the genetic makeup of the world to private interests and reward their efforts to "improve" on millions of years of evolution.

Following campaigns by Greenpeace and others, the European Parliament rejected a proposal for patents on life. In a test case at the European Patent Office, Greenpeace established that patents on plants and seeds should not be allowed. Greenpeace will now build on these early successes in its continuing campaigns against the development, patenting and release of genetically engineered products.

The Future

Greenpeace has already achieved remarkable victories on some of these and on many other issues.

In the past decade Greenpeace campaigns have contributed to: a world wide ban on the use of large scale driftnet fishing; the creation of a whale sanctuary in Antarctica; the creation of maritime/terrestrial national park in the Spanish Cabrera archipelago; a United Nations global Fisheries Treaty; a World Bank forest policy that prohibits Bank financing of logging in primary tropical forests; stopping the illegal destruction of the endangered Mata Atlantica rainforest in Brazil; the creation of the first certified clearcut-free ecoforestry operation in Canada; the dramatic reduction of logging in Clayoquot Sound, a region of Canadian temperate rainforest; and the protection (United Nations World Heritage Designation) of the Russian Komi region, Europes largest intact old growth boreal forest.

Greenpeace was also influential in the 1980 in achieving a world-wide moratorium on commercial whaling. While there are two remaining commercial whaling nations, we anticipate the demise of this industry in the near future as a result of our continued campaigns.

With your support, we will continue to fight against biodiversity loss; we are confident these trends can be halted and eventually overcome.