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Science 14 November 2003:
Vol. 302. no. 5648, pp. 1175 - 1177
DOI: 10.1126/science.1088666
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Prospects for Biodiversity

Martin Jenkins

Assuming no radical transformation in human behavior, we can expect important changes in biodiversity and ecosystem services by 2050. A considerable number of species extinctions will have taken place. Existing large blocks of tropical forest will be much reduced and fragmented, but temperate forests and some tropical forests will be stable or increasing in area, although the latter will be biotically impoverished. Marine ecosystems will be very different from today's, with few large marine predators, and freshwater biodiversity will be severely reduced almost everywhere. These changes will not, in themselves, threaten the survival of humans as a species.

United NationsEnvironment Programme–World Conservation Monitoring Centre, 219c Huntingdon Road, Cambridge, CB3 ODL, UK.

E-mail: martin.jenkins{at}unep-wcmc.org

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