Biodiversity is under dire threat from global warming, habitat loss, pollution and over-exploitation, all largely the fault of humans, the head of world-renowned Kew Gardens said on Thursday.
"First-aiders always check the ABC - Airway, Breathing and Circulation - of a patient to see if anything needs immediate attention," Stephen Hopper said in an interview in his office overlooking the lush Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, west London.
"Biodiversity is the ABC of life on the planet - and it is showing it is in deep trouble," he told Reuters.
World experts will gather in Germany next month to try to work out what to do to stop the dramatic increase in the rate of loss of plants, animals and insects in what many see as the start of the sixth great species wipe-out in the Earth's history.
The last one was in the age of the dinosaurs which first appeared 230 million years ago and dominated the Earth for 100 million years. By comparison, human domination has so far lasted the equivalent of the blink of an eye.
"The challenge for us is to find a way of slowing down or preferably stopping all this destruction. We need to ensure the maximum options for the future," Hopper said.
"Globally we use 30,000 species of plants as edible but we base most of our western agriculture on just a dozen. As the environment changes, who knows which of the other 29,988 are going to emerge as the most important in a future world?"
A species of food crop that produces bounty now may be rendered useless in the future because of climate change-induced droughts, floods or changes in soil salinity or acidity.
