By Omotayo Edubi
Specialists at the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and International Support Network for African Development (ISNAD-Africa) have expressed worries over the loss of 24,000 or 86 per cent of the 28,000 species in the world to agriculture.
With increasing global population, the experts in a policy document released by ISNAD-Africa in partnership with WWF on Thursday said that the threat of agriculture to the loss of biodiversity is growing rapidly in Africa.
Executive Secretary of ISNAD-Africa, Adedoyin Adeleke said while agriculture remained crucial to eradicating hunger and malnutrition globally as the sector generates a 32 per cent of gross domestic product and employing 65 per cent of the population in sub-Sahara Africa, its impacts on biodiversity loss is worrisome.
“The sector, coupled with the unprecedented population increase, is considered a huge contributor to biodiversity loss in Africa and across the globe. Forest, and other ecosystems are being converted to agricultural land, thus constituting a threat to habitats and contributing to a reduction in the number and abundance of species,” Adeleke said.
He said the increasing demand for foods, fuels and fibre induced by the unprecedented growth of human population have stimulated the intensification of agriculture in sub-Sahara. To address the issues, he said there was the need for the inclusion of 2030 milestones in the post 2020 Global Biodiversity Framework.
Adedoyin added that the plan must be communicable and define the outcomes of achievement that were needed before achieving reversal of biodiversity by 2030 and achieve the 2050 Vision.