How Many Species Inhabit the Planet?
“Some people who study insects think there may be as many as 100 million species out there,” said Jeff McNeely, the chief scientist at the World Conservation Union. “But if you took a poll of biologists, I think most would say there are somewhere around 15 million,” he told Reuters by telephone from the organisation’s Swiss headquarters. According to the Collins English Dictionary, a species is “a class of plants or animals whose members have the same main characteristics and are able to breed with each other”. The conundrum will hang over a UN conference in Brazil next week where experts will discuss ways to slow the loss of species. The United Nations agreed in 2002 to reduce the rate at which animals and plants are disappearing by 2010. “The implication of not knowing exactly how many species there are is that we can’t tell if we are actually making progress on the 2010 target,” said McNeely. WHAT WE KNOW, WHAT WE DON’T What we know is that around 1.7 million plant and animal specie
