NEW YORK, December 2 (Sputnik) – Wealthy Western nations, including the United States and Australia, are among the worst performers at conserving and protecting the range of animals living within their borders, Ana Rodrigues, researcher on a new report, said Tuesday.
“We were surprised to find that two of the world’s wealthiest nations – the United States and Australia – are among the worst performers,” said Rodrigues, co-author of a study for the Centre d’Ecologie Fonctionnelle et Evolutive (CEFE) and other nature groups.
“This was even more striking given that developing countries such as Brazil, India, Peru and Madagascar have done proportionately much better at holding their commitments towards avoiding global biodiversity loss,” Rodrigues added.
“That nations, such as the Cook Islands, Fiji, Mauritius, Seychelles and Tonga, have been able to reverse the extinction crisis in their countries demonstrates how effective conservation actions like invasive species eradication, bio-security, management of protected areas, and ecosystem restoration can be,” added report co-author Simon Stuart of International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
The study conducted by CEFE, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), and BirdLife International found that wealthy countries are not performing better at reducing the loss of biodiversity in their countries.
The study revealed that eight nations – Australia, China, Colombia, Ecuador, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mexico and the United States – are responsible for more than half of the global deterioration in the conservation status of vertebrate species.
