A permanent loss of incalculable value

Many scientists believe we are living through the sixth mass extinction — the largest loss of life on Earth since the time of the dinosaurs — and that it is being driven by humans.

The 2022 Living Planet Report, compiled by World Wildlife Fund International and the Zoological Society of London, assessed the abundance of birds, fish, amphibians and reptiles between 1970 and 2018 and discovered an alarming decline:

Direct drivers are underpinned by a range of more indirect drivers, such as increases in human population and affluence, as well as sociocultural, economic, technological, institutional and governance factors, connected to values and behaviours.”

Here in North America, the average wildlife population size was estimated to have declined by 20%. According to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, as of April, 2022, there are:

• 500 animal species and 768 plant species listed as endangered; and
• 231 animal species and 171 plant species listed as threatened.

That’s over a thousand species which have inhabited the earth for millions of years facing the threat of being extinguished — in our country and under our watch. Seventy species of birds in North America alone have “collectively lost 2/3 of their populations in the past 50 years, and are on track to lose another 50% in the next 50 years,” according to Cornell University’s “State of the Birds” 2022 report.

“The news on bird populations has generally been bad and getting worse,” says NumbersUSA’s Scientific Director Leon Kolankiewicz, “all of it related directly and indirectly to the expanding ‘human enterprise’.”

America’s “biodiversity crisis” is caused primarily by habitat loss due to human activities such as timber harvesting, agriculture, and urban sprawl, which in turn is driven by human population growth. Even people with extraordinary conservationist mindsets have material needs.

Unfortunately, every effort to save America’s beleaguered wildlife is thwarted by federal immigration policies which continue to incentivize and enable both legal and illegal immigration. Even before the unprecedented levels of illegal immigration during the past two years, the U.S. Census Bureau predicted that America’s population would reach 404 million by 2060, with more than 90% of this increase due to immigration.

The population growth Congress has planned through immigration policy will further convert much of our remaining habitat areas into more urban sprawl and lands used for natural resource extraction (mining, timber, agriculture, water supplies).

Americans have plenty of selfish reasons to protect species and ecosystems that sustain us. But many of us believe we also have a responsibility — as stewards of the earth – to avoid human-caused disruptions that lead to the end of a species.

There is no return from extinction – it is a permanent loss of something of inestimable value.

Urban sprawl and habitat loss increases the risks of species extinction in America. Reducing immigration-driven population growth (e.g., limiting chain migration) is the best way to save our remaining habitat and wilderness areas and to preserve America’s diversity of life.

Conventional economic thinking assumes that because immigration grows the population and the economy, more immigration-driven population growth is always good.

But “if we cannot talk about limits,” as the authors of a review and critique of the Living Planet Report put it, “we cannot think clearly and honestly about the ethical issues with which massive biodiversity loss confronts us. In particular, we cannot ask whether it is unjust to crowd other species off the Earth to accommodate more of us.”

If that is the case, they argue, we might as well rename it the “2022 Dying Planet” report.

JEREMY BECK is a V.P., Deputy Director for NumbersUSA