posted on 2023-05-20, 15:47authored byDi Minin, E, Thomas BrooksThomas Brooks, Toivonen, T, Butchart, SHM, Heikinheimo, V, Watson, JEM, Burgess, ND, Challender, DWS, Goettsch, B, Jenkins, R, Moilanen, A
Overexploitation is one of the main threats to biodiversity, but the intensity of this threat varies geographically. We identified global concentrations, on land and at sea, of 4543 species threatened by unsustainable commercial harvesting. Regions under high-intensity threat (based on accessibility on land and on fishing catch at sea) cover 4.3% of the land and 6.1% of the seas and contain 82% of all species threatened by unsustainable harvesting and >80% of the ranges of Critically Endangered species threatened by unsustainable harvesting. Currently, only 16% of these regions are covered by protected areas on land and just 6% at sea. Urgent actions are needed in these centers of unsustainable harvesting to ensure that use of species is sustainable and to prevent further species' extinctions.
History
Publication title
Science Advances
Volume
5
Issue
4
Article number
eaau2879
Number
eaau2879
Pagination
1-8
ISSN
2375-2548
Department/School
Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies
Publisher
American Association for the Advancement of Science (A A A S)
Place of publication
United States
Rights statement
Copyright 2019 The Authors. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/