An Earth Without Lungs

A report appearing yesterday in Current Biology indicates that in the past 20 years, the Earth has lost ten percent of wilderness areas, land equivalent to twice the size of Alaska. Most of the loss has occurred in South America, where the Amazon basin has been ravaged by the timber and mining industries, and encroaching human habitation. The report's principal author, James Watson of the Wildlife Conservation Society, when interviewed by ThinkProgress, explained that the trajectory of wilderness loss could mean only a decade or two remains to reverse the process. Currently, an estimated 23% of the planet is considered "wilderness."

Wilderness areas and rainforests are essential to the Earth's ecosystem, providing for the exchange of atmospheric gases and the production of oxygen, as well as sequestering carbon that would otherwise add to global warming. Indeed, the Amazon rainforest has been referred to as Earth's "lungs."  Watson said that only through a concerted effort by countries like the U.S., Brazil, Australia and other countries with large wilderness areas can we bend the trajectory by adopting forceful conservation efforts.