＜prologue＞
I started a blog called “The Baby Boomer Generation’s Miscellaneous Blog”（Dankai-sedai no garakutatyou:団塊世代の我楽多（がらくた）帳） in July 2018, about a year before I fully retired. More than six years have passed since then, and the number of articles has increased considerably.
So, in order to make them accessible to people who don’t understand Japanese, I decided to translate my past articles into English and publish them.
It may sound a bit exaggerated, but I would like to make this my life’s work.
It should be noted that haiku and waka （Japanese short fixed form poems） are quite difficult to translate into English, so some parts are written in Japanese.
If you are interested in haiku or waka and would like to know more, please read introductory or specialized books on haiku or waka written in English.
I also write many articles about the Japanese language. I would be happy if these inspire more people to want to learn Japanese.
my blog’s URL:団塊世代の我楽多（がらくた）帳 | 団塊世代が雑学や面白い話を発信しています
my X’s URL:団塊世代の我楽多帳（@historia49）さん / X
In May 2019, an intergovernmental meeting hosted by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) warned that humanity is wreaking havoc on the natural environment and biodiversity on land and sea.
The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), which includes 132 governments from around the world, released an eccentric and sensational report that states that nearly one million species of plants and animals are threatened with extinction as a result of human activities.
It states that this is due to “humanity’s ever-increasing demand for food and energy.”
The report concludes that “a total and radical change in the way humanity interacts with nature is needed” to solve this problem.
１．Problems with the Biodiversity Report
(1) One million species in danger of extinction is an exaggerated figure
A July 2016 article in Nikkei Plus One pointed out that “According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature, there are 1.37 million animal species on Earth, 70% of which are insects.
Also included in this article is the following story by Rikio Matsumoto, curator of the Osaka Museum of Natural History. It is interesting and I would like to share it with you.
＜The Sixth Mass Extinction Crisis＞
In the 3.8 billion years since life first appeared on the earth, there have been “mass extinctions,” during which a large number of organisms died out.
The most famous was the extinction of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago, caused by the impact of a huge meteorite on the earth.
In fact, many scientists are worried that this is the sixth mass extinction. When humans clear forests and build cities and fields, they lose their habitats. Many animals are killed by humans for their tusks and other parts. According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), about 23,000 species are in danger of extinction. So far, catastrophes have been the catalyst, but humans may be to blame.
On the other hand, the number of plant species is generally estimated to be between 200,000 and 300,000.
The total number of plant and animal species on earth, assuming that the above estimated figures are correct, is 1.57 to 1.67 million. Then, the number of species that will survive in the future will be around 600,000.
I suspect that most of the endangered species are unnamed insects, reptiles, amphibians, and marine mammals that live in “tropical rainforests” (jungles), and plants such as mangroves that live in tropical rainforests.
IPBES estimates the number of plant and animal species on the earth at an extremely high 8 million, but more than 40% of amphibians, about 33% of coral reef-building corals and sharks, and 33% of marine mammals are “endangered,” according to the report.
I believe that “how many species of plants and animals are on the earth” is inferred by a method like “Fermi estimation” based on a certain number of samples and various assumptions, since it is impossible to examine all the individuals on the ground.
Fermi estimation” is ”the process of estimating in a short period of time an elusive quantity that would be difficult to investigate in practice by logically deducing it based on a number of clues. The results can vary greatly depending on the different assumptions made.
（２）Conservation and environmental groups are nature supremacists with a disregard for humans
However, the thinking of conservation and environmental groups is that “everything that originally existed on the earth is good, and we should not exterminate it”.
However, since there have already been five mass extinctions in the 3.8 billion years since life first appeared on earth, I believe that a sixth mass extinction would not be a problem.
And I think we should never forget the “benefit to humans” aspect.
２．We should not protect things that are going extinct by artificially stopping them.
We hear stories of endangered species that have been protected and are now struggling to cope with their overabundance. In Japan, as a result of not properly exterminating bears, wild boars, and deer, there has been enormous damage to crops and many attacks on people.
It was reported that a non-native animal of the deer family called “Kyon,” which escaped from Namekawa Island, a zoo and botanical garden in Chiba Prefecture, has multiplied to 40,000 animals and is now threatening the lives of nearby residents by destroying their crops, eating flowers and grass in private gardens, and spreading its feces and urine. This “kyon” has a very high reproductive capacity (36% increase in one year), and if immediate action is not taken, it will not only destroy the ecosystem, but may even appear in Tokyo.
Did the extinction of New Zealand’s “Warai Fukuro(Owl)” or Japan’s “Japanese wolf” cause any inconvenience? Or what would be the benefit of protecting them before their extinction? I think that there are limits to human protection, such as population control.
It is also unclear what those who are concerned about extinction think about the following points
(1) What is the purpose of not making them extinct?
(2) How many animals are they trying to increase?
(3) What will be done if there are too many?
(4) What is the final outlook for the ecosystem as a result of protection?
If there is a “sixth mass extinction,” even if it is not caused by “natural selection” or “meteorite impact” but by “human selection,” I still believe that we should let nature take its course.
Protecting endangered species” is like ‘trying to force the revival of a singer or other entertainer who has lost popularity’; it is unreasonable. I believe that extinction is not a bad thing because there are good reasons for extinction.