Almost 4,500 marine species from 21 world heritage sites, They already integrate a new cartography of life in the seas and oceans developed by UNESCOa pioneer in using a method that saves dozens of years of research and several thousand euros: analyze the DNA contained in 1.5 liters of water.
“At a time when biodiversity degradation is reaching alarming levels, (this programme) offers new opportunities to better understand, and safeguard the main ecosystems of the 18 thousand marine protected areas around the world“, indicated the Secretary General of UNESCO, Audrey Azoulay, regarding an initiative that she considers “revolutionary.”
This cartography, which, although it will be progressively expanded, allows you to consult the data collected in the last three years of work online, has already surveyed species from places as varied as the Valdés Peninsula in Argentina, the Revillagigedo archipelago in Mexico, the iSimangaliso park in South Africa or the Everglades in Florida, United States.
In total, 4,406 species have already been catalogued, 120 of them threatened. The majority are fish (2,078), but three types of turtles and 28 types of marine mammals, among others, have also been identified.
For example, in the Cocos Islands of Costa Rica, The balance of the tests carried out was 347 species in total, 164 of them fish and a total of 14 in a vulnerable situation, and in Yemen, in the Socotra archipelago, the list was 260 species, among which 139 fish and 3 of them threatened.
Lee: 2024 will be the first year that exceeds the threshold of climate warming
A tool against heating
The environmental analysis of DNA is not a new technique, the coordinator of UNESCO’s Marine World Heritage program, Fanny Douvere, said this Monday in a presentation in Paris, but Until now it had never been used in a global and standardized way.
Douvere explained that this way of studying biodiversity, It has numerous advantages over traditional methods, from the reduction of time to low costs, through a very low level of “intrusiveness”, since it only requires extracting one and a half liters of water.
For example, a kit to take samples with the standards required by UNESCO costs about 25 euros and the total research process, What previously could take five to ten years is reduced to just a few months.
“It is accessible even to the least resourced and most remote places,” Douvere highlighted.
With a single sample, Genetic traces are obtained from an average of a hundred species and, to collect them, UNESCO has recruited volunteers from all over the world, such as students or members of local communities, always led by an expert scientist.
With this program, UNESCO seeks not only to disseminate knowledge of the species that inhabit each ecosystem, but also to help those responsible for marine protected areas to understand how climate change affects them and improve conditions.
It is something key at a time when rising ocean temperatures “are forcing many species in the world to seek colder and deeper waters,” Douvere recalled.
Lee: New study shows how Egypt’s pyramids were created
The study also determined “that many of these species will soon face temperatures that will exceed their tolerance limits known,” according to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization in a press release about the program.
“If the warmest climate scenario were to occur, up to 100% of the fish species in the tropical and subtropical locations studied would would be at risk of exceeding their current thermal limits and becoming extinctwhile between 10 and 50% of fish species in temperate oceans would exceed their current thermal limits,” the sources added.
Cartography will also contribute to the 30×30 objective of the international community, that is, to have 30% of the oceans and seas protected by 2030. It is something that is still a long way from, since the current percentage is only 8%.
And not only must the number of protected marine ecosystems be increased, but also Appropriate places must be preserved to guarantee biodiversity.
“If we are not protecting the correct 30% because marine species are leaving, we will miss the boat,” considered the coordinator of UNESCO’s Marine World Heritage program.
* * * Stay up to date with the news, join our WhatsApp channel * * *
https://www.whatsapp.com/chanFnel/0029VaAf9Pu9hXF1EJ561i03
AL
