How we shop hurts endangered species

The hidden danger to wildlife posed by imported consumer goods - an expresso coffee in Beijing, a tofu salad in Chicago - can now be pinpointed and measured, researchers said Wednesday. Crunching huge amounts of data, they unveiled a global "threat map" detailing the impact on endangered species of exports to the United States, China, Japan and the European Union.
To procure beans for that coffee or tofu, for example, forests have been cleared in Sumatra, Indonesia and in Brazil's Mato Grosso, adding incrementally to the habitat loss driving dozens of animals and plants towards extinction. The global supply chain of manufactured goods - from iPhones to Ikea furniture - can also contribute to wildlife decline. Focusing on nearly 7,000 land and marine species classified as threatened by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the researchers traced "hotspots" of biodiversity loss to hundreds of commodities and their distant markets.
In earlier work, they concluded that thirty percent of world-wide species threats are due to international trade. The new study, published in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution, reveals which nations' consumers drive species loss most.
It also suggests where conservation efforts should be focused. Currently, 90 percent of the more than $6 billion (5.75 billion euros) mobilised each year for species conservation is spent within rich nations where money is raised. "Yet these countries are rarely where threat hotspots lie," said senior author Keiichiro Kanemoto, a professor at Shinshu University in Matsumoto, Japan.
The study provides tools to calculate what percentage of the species threat in one country is due to consumption of goods in another, he told AFP. About two percent of the total threat to the endangered stub-footed toad in Brazil, for example, can be attributed directly to logging linked to goods exported to the United States. Timber harvested in Malaysia and exported mainly to the EU and China has similarly robbed the Asian elephant, the greater spotted eagle and the Sun bear of habitat.