This June 19, 2020 photo, shows workers covering with huge geotextile sheets the Presena glacier (2700m-3000m) on the Val di Sole near Pellizzano in Trentino, northern Italy, in order to delay snow melting on skiing slopes. (MIGUEL MEDINA / AFP)

Human activity and climate change are driving more than 500 land-based vertebrates－amphibians, birds, mammals and reptiles－to the brink of extinction, according to researchers.

Australia has the second-highest number of land vertebrates on the brink of extinction, despite being the smallest continent

Professor Paul Ehrlich, of the department of biology at Stanford University in California, said: "When humanity exterminates populations and species of other creatures, it is sawing off the limb on which it is sitting, destroying working parts of our own life-support system.

"The conservation of endangered species should be elevated to a national and global emergency for governments and institutions, equal to climate disruption to which it is linked."

Ehrlich is one of the authors of a study published in the scientific journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

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The study says the mass extinction is accelerating and calls for immediate global conservation actions to prevent a "catastrophic ecosystem collapse".

Researchers looked at 29,400 species－on the International Union for the Conservation of Nature Red List of Threatened Species and from Bird-Life International－and found that 1.7 percent, or 515 of these species, are on the brink of extinction.

They also said that 84 percent of the 388 terrestrial vertebrate species that have fewer than 5,000 remaining individuals are located in the same geographical regions as species on the brink, and may therefore soon face a similar risk due to the human-driven collapse of regional biodiversity.

Additional analyses suggest that terrestrial vertebrate species on the brink have collectively lost approximately 237,000 populations since 1900.

According to the authors, the findings underscore the need for global action to prevent further loss of terrestrial vertebrate species.

The study said "there will be more pandemics if we continue destroying habitats and trading wildlife for human consumption as food and traditional medicines".

'Final opportunity'

Professor Gerardo Ceballos of the National Autonomous University of Mexico, who led the research, said: "We are facing our final opportunity to ensure that the many services nature provides us do not get irretrievably sabotaged."

Associate Professor Diana Fisher of the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Queensland and vice-president of the Australian Mammal Society, said species on every continent except for Antarctica are under threat.

"This is an important study that deserves attention, because so many people do not realize how much of the world's wildlife faces impending extinction," Fisher said.

Australia has the second-highest number of land vertebrates on the brink of extinction, despite being the smallest continent. Only South America has more species on the brink, because of the many critically endangered frogs there.

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The study highlighted the wildlife trade, but, in Australia, habitat loss and invasive predators and diseases are particularly serious threats.

Amy Coetsee, a threatened-species biologist at Zoos Victoria, said: "Globally, humans are driving many species toward extinction at an accelerated rate."

She said the latest study was a "wake-up call" to take urgent action on a global scale, to reverse the extinction crisis.

"If we don't, civilization is at risk. Australia has the worst mammal extinction record in the world. Many of our unique species are on the brink of extinction due to habitat destruction, introduced species, and climate change," Coetsee said.