The discovery of more than 408 new species of mammals around the world since 1993 alerts us to how little we know of the natural world and such lack of knowledge poses a danger to our survival according to Paul Ehrlich of Stanford University.

Ehrlich compares the extinction of species to removing rivets from a plane wing suggesting that if we continue to destroy vital habitat for rare or threatened species, nature will crash.

A recent paper co-authored by Ehrlich and Gerardo Ceballos of Mexico’s National University found that “a substantial number persist only in areas undergoing rapid habitat destruction” implying “even greater threats to ecosystem services and human well-being than previously assumed” since mammals are generally the best-studied and most “charismatic” of animals.

The paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in the United States draws our attention to the fact that we know very little about our natural capital and the services that flow from it.

The United Nation’s Global Biodiversity Assessment has estimated that Earth supports close to 13.6 million species and only 13% of these have been scientifically described. New species are constantly being found, including the discovery of the Masked White-tailed Rat in the Daintree just 15 years ago.

Ehrlich suggests that humans underestimate the importance of our interconnectedness and dependence upon other species to sustain us. He argues that the relationships between different species and there populations are critical to our survival.

“I think what most people miss is that the human economy is a wholly owned subsidiary of the economy of nature, which supplies us from our natural capital a steady flow of income that we can’t do without,” Ehrlich said. “And that income is in the form of what are called ‘ecosystem services’; keeping carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, supplying fresh water, preventing floods, protecting our crops from pests and pollinating many of them, recycling the nutrients that are essential to agriculture and forestry, and on and on.”

Ehrlich said the answer to the question, “What difference does it make if we put a strip mall in here and this little fly goes extinct, or this little mouse goes extinct?” lies in the rivet-popper hypothesis, which he and his wife and colleague, Anne Ehrlich, a senior research scientist in the Department of Biology at Stanford, developed in the 1980s.

The rivet-popper hypothesis is based in the principle that an airplane wing has a certain amount of redundancy in its design, as does much of nature. The hypothesis suggests that you can pop off some of the rivets and the wing will still hold together and the plane will still fly. But at some point, you’ll have removed one too many rivets and the plane will crash.

Of the 122 known rare and threatened plant species in the Daintree region, 85 are found on private land and some tree species are only represented by a few individuals that are located on freehold blocks. Many of these species are unique to the region, like the elusive Bennett’s tree kangaroo, the Thornton Peak Uromys, and the Daintree River Ringtail Possum.

How much development will it take to remove a “rivet” from the wing of the Daintree?

To help Rainforest Rescue buyback properties threatened by development in the Daintree, please make a donation to the Daintree Buy Back & Protect Forever Project.