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Warming threatens natural wonders

An environmental group lists 10 regions at serious risk from temperature change.

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published April 6, 2007

BRUSSELS - An environmental group said Thursday that some of the world's greatest natural treasures are threatened with destruction because of global warming - from the Great Barrier Reef to the Amazon rain forests and the unique ecosystem of the Mexican desert.

On the sidelines of a climate change conference in Brussels, the World Wildlife Fund for Nature issued a list of 10 regions suffering serious damage from global warming, and where it has projects to limit further damage or help people adapt to new conditions.

"What we are talking about are the faces of the impacts of climate change," said Lara Hansen, WWF's chief scientist on climate.

The group said coral reefs around the world, including the Great Barrier Reef in Australia and the MesoAmerican Reef off Belize, begin to lose their color and die with a rise in ocean waters of just 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit. They are also threatened by the increasing ferocity of tropical storms.

Environmentalists project the temperature of the Amazon River could rise by 3.6 to 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit within 50 years, turning up to 60 percent of the rain forest into a dry savanna.

In the Bering Sea, warmer winters are leading to the earlier breakup of spring ice and driving salmon stocks closer to the North Pole, disrupting the Arctic ecosystem. Melting ice is also diluting seawater and affecting nutrients for small organisms on which fish feed.

The Chihuahua Desert straddling the U.S.-Mexican border is suffering from drought and intensive farming and overgrazing. North America's largest desert, the Chihuahua has 3,500 unique plant species, including an array of cactus and yucca, that could be at risk.

Many of the regions at risk were singled out in a report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, an authoritative body of 2,500 scientists. The report, which is undergoing governmental review at the five-day conference in Brussels, projects consequences for each degree of rising global temperatures, which the IPCC agrees is largely caused by human activity.

Some damage at the 10 areas listed by WWF is irreversible, such as shrinking glaciers, Hansen said. Certain types of coral reefs, however, can recover.

[Last modified April 6, 2007, 01:10:31]