Stop Arguing About Biodiversity Threats: Scientist

Conservation biologists at the University of Hong Kong say immediate and future threats to biodiversity need to be addressed in tandem, warning that prioritising some threats, like climate change, over others is detrimental to the overall goal of saving plants and animals globally.

In an article published in the journal Trends in Ecology and Evolution, the researchers say current funding models need to be re-evaluated to move away from a "narrow-minded" and "compartmentalised" approach to conservation.

One of the article's authors, Dr Timothy Bonebrake from the university's school of biological sciences, told RTHK’s Richard Pyne that prioritising habitat loss over climate change, for example, may eventually lead to more damage than we expect.

“If and when climate change becomes a bigger or perhaps the biggest threat, it will be too late. And that will essentially cause more extinction than we might otherwise have thought,” he said.

He said limited resources and a lack of exchanges between scientists of different disciplines may have let to this mindset.

“In reality it’s everything: habitat loss, climate change or exploitation, all these things are happening at once,” he warned.

“It’s key that we address all of them at once,” added Bonebrake.

He said researchers need to understand how one threat interacts with another, and adopt a more holistic approach in their studies.

“The first step is just to stop arguing about it … we need to talk about all of them, and understand that all of them are impacting biodiversity,” he said.

For example, Bonebrake said, measures to prevent hill fires in Hong Kong will also help conserve habitats and reduce disturbances to the environment, and result in “a better outcome for biodiversity”.