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Biodiversity World Day

Climate change, invasive alien species and habitat destruction: all numbers on biodiversity and threats to its conservation

The current rate of animal and plant extinction species is 100 to 1,000 times higher than that recorded in pre-human times. Scientists believe that our world facing the sixth mass extinction, due to anthropic causes, even higher than the one that marked the dinosaurs extinction, 65 million years ago. From 1500 to date, there are 765 extinct documented species, including 79 mammals, 145 birds, 36 amphibians. Currently the extinctions are proceeding at the rate of between 10 and 690 species per week.