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Biodiversity

Trade threat could be even more dire

Nature volume 487, page 39 (2012)Cite this article

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Manfred Lenzen and colleagues suggest that 30% of species globally may be threatened by the international trade in commodities (Nature 486, 109–112; 2012). We feel that this estimate is too conservative.

The scale and magnitude of damage to biodiversity resulting from the recent sharp rise in trade volume will probably take decades to realize (F. Essl et al. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 108, 203–207; 2011). Exports worldwide increased by 119% between 1990 and 2011 (see go.nature.com/au5chf), notably from 'megadiverse' countries such as China, Brazil, India and Indonesia. These countries are also major exporters of commodities such as biofuel, which has a huge detrimental impact on tropical and subtropical biodiversity.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Environment Agency Austria, Vienna, Austria

    Franz Essl

  2. Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research — UFZ, Halle, Germany

    Marten Winter

  3. Institute of Botany, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Průhonice

    Petr Pyšek

  4. Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic

    Petr Pyšek

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  1. Franz Essl
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  2. Marten Winter
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  3. Petr Pyšek
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Correspondence to Franz Essl.

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Essl, F., Winter, M. & Pyšek, P. Trade threat could be even more dire. Nature 487, 39 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/487039b

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