Earth's systems in rapid decline. Overpopulation is causing huge losses in biodiversity, and 'protected areas' such as national parks aren't working.

The Convention on Biological Diversity's 2010 conference in Nagoya, Japan agreed to put 17 per cent of land and 10 per cent of oceans on Earth under protection by 2020, but this may not stop the decline in biodiversity [EPA]

By Stephen Leahy

Protecting bits of nature here and there will not prevent humanity from losing our life support system. Even if areas dedicated to conserving plants, animals, and other species that provide Earth's life support system increased tenfold, it would not be enough without dealing with the big issues of the 21st century: population, overconsumption and inefficient resource use.

Without dealing with those big issues, humanity will need 27 planet Earths by 2050, a new study estimates. 

The size and number of protected areas on land and sea has increased dramatically since the 1980s, now totaling over 100,000 in number and covering 17 million square kilometres of land and two million square kilometres of oceans, a new study reported Thursday.

Dealing with failure

But impressive as those numbers look, all indicators reveal species going extinct faster than ever before, despite all the additions of new parks, reserves and other conservation measures, according to the study published in the journal Marine Ecology Progress Series. 

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