A new report confirms that life on Earth is in trouble
一份新的報告證實，地球上的生命陷入了困境
A million species may be at risk
100 萬物種瀕臨滅絕
A million species of animals and plants are threatened with extinction. Three-quarters of the world’s land and two-thirds of its marine environments have been 「significantly altered」 by human action. Urban areas have doubled in size in just the past 30 years.
地球上有 100 萬種動植物正瀕臨滅絕。全球四分之三的陸地環境和三分之二的海洋環境已經因人類的活動而「顯著改變」了。在過去的 30 年裡，城市的面積增加了一倍。
More than 85% of wetlands have been lost. More than 90% of ocean fish stocks are being harvested at or above sustainable levels. These are among claims made in a report published on May 6th by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, a big international quango.
超過 85%的溼地已經消失了。90%以上的海洋魚類的捕撈量達到或超過了可持續水平。這些數據都是生物多樣性和生態系統服務政府間科學政策平臺(一個大型國際半官方機構)於 5 月 6 日發布的一篇報告中提出的。
The report, based on 15,000 research papers, makes grim reading. More than 40% ofamphibians are threatened with extinction, as are a third of marine mammals, a third of sharks and a third of corals (a novel idea for the protection of which is described in the next story). Even 10% of the world’s insects are on the brink.
讀起這份基於 15000 篇研究論文的報告著實令人沮喪。超過 40%的兩棲動物正瀕臨滅絕，三分之一的海洋哺乳動物、三分之一的鯊魚和三分之一的珊瑚(下一篇文章描述了保護珊瑚的新想法)也瀕臨滅絕。此外，全球 10%的昆蟲也正瀕臨滅絕。
A cynic might suggest that 1m is a suspiciously headline-grabbing figure. It is, indeed, only a little short of the number of animal and plant species (around 950,000 and 200,000 respectively) currently recognised and
described by science. And its accuracy depends on many assumptions. But it is probably not a bad guess.
憤世嫉俗者可能會認為這 100 萬不過是頭條新聞中為了吸人眼球的一個並不可靠的數值而已。的確，這一數值僅比目前科學界已經認識並加以描述的動物和植物物種的數量(分別約為 95 萬和 20 萬)略少一些。這一數值的準確性取決於許多假設。但它很有可能並不是一種胡亂的猜想。
A consensus is emerging of there being some 8m species of animals and plants (the report ignores bacteria, fungi and unicellular creatures like Amoeba).
如今科學界正在形成一種共識，即地球上現存大約 800 萬種動植物(不包括細菌、真菌以及阿米巴等單細胞生物)。
Using figures from the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), which publishes an annual Red List of Threatened Species, the report’s authors looked at the proportion of threatened species in well-studied groups of organisms andextrapolated.
報告的作者利用國際自然保護聯盟發布的年度瀕危物種紅色名錄中的數據，對生物群體中瀕危物種的比例進行了研究和推論。
In those groups, the IUCN reckons around a quarter of species are at risk of extinction. Many of the best-studied groups, however, are vertebrate animals, while most animals are invertebrates.
Extrapolating from vertebrates to invertebrates is risky.
國際自然保護聯盟估計，大約四分之一的物種存在著滅絕的危險。然而，被研究的最多的動物往往是一些脊椎動物，但實際上無脊椎動物的佔比更大。以對脊椎動物的研究來推斷無脊椎動物可能並不可靠。
The authors therefore made an exception for insects, the most speciose group (5.5m of the 8m purported species). For these they suggest 10% might be threatened with extinction—a figure in line with one derived by combining data on habitat degradation with the known relationship between habitat area and species numbers.
因此，作者通過另外的方法對昆蟲做了推斷，昆蟲是種類最多的物種(在傳說的800 萬物種中有 550 萬是昆蟲)。他們認為有 10%的昆蟲可能瀕臨滅絕——這一數值與通過棲息地面積和物種數量之間的已知關係推算出的數值相一致。
This suggests 9% of terrestrial animals (most of which are insects) are threatened with extinction. Add the figures up and a bit over 1m is what you get. Depressing.
這表明 9%的陸棲生物正瀕臨滅絕。把這些數字加起來，你就能得出一個比 100 萬多一點的數值了。多麼令人沮喪啊。