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Vergin Areas to Save
9,000,000 square kilometres, the equivalent of 6.1% of the visible surface of the earth: this is the ‘size’ of the portion of the planet that is still uncontaminated. The last refuge for up to 70% of plant organisms and 8% of terrestrial animals, which find in these unique places the habitat suitable for their survival. But not only: in this ‘virgin’ territory the last remnants of peoples and ancient civilisations light years from our way of life survive: an incalculably valuable heritage in terms of their knowledge, spirituality and culture.
Here are some areas which appear to have been saved from human destruction for the moment:
· The Amazon forest
· The Congo forest,
· Papua New Guinea
· North American deserts
· the Miombo-Mopane forest,
· the South African savannah.
As far as the rest of the world is concerned, there is nothing to smile about: the Harvard biologist E. O. Wilson has said that we are facing the most serious mass extinction of species in the last 65 million years of life on Earth. Some numbers? Between 50 and 150 species a day are being lost, i.e. between 18,000 and 55,000 a year. Figures that are mind-boggling: by 2100 two thirds of the animal and plant species on Earth will be extinct.
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