Santiago Times - In a recently published article in Science magazine, a team of researchers coined the term “defaunation” to alert the public of a new phase of animal extinction severely accelerated by humans. Despite this dire trend, though, the Chilean government neglects to take appropriate action due to the propagation of false information, say experts.

 

Biologist and environmental management investigator Juan Sufán told The Santiago Times that information circulated among government officials and within scientific circles does not always coincide.

 

“So there’s what the official lists are saying, but then there’s what scientists know,” he said.

 

According to Sufán, Chilean public officials lack the appropriate training and resources.

 

“Public officials are overworked … they only have three or four hours to complete a given study, so they don’t have time to go to all the zones where they should go. They don’t have good staffs: many [officials] lack the appropriate training, they’re not given the appropriate resources to train new officials and new officials don’t have time to train themselves,” he said.

 

As a result, they often make egregious mistakes.

 

“They designate a protected area, mark its borders, usually set up an office — but they don’t go to the actual terrain or consult the appropriate specialists,” he said.

 

“Many of the [Chilean] environmental impact studies that have been presented in the last six years name reptiles that aren’t even from the Andean region, and this is the kind of mistake that’s repeated for years,” he added.

 

The man behind the term “defaunation,” Rodolfo Dirzo — one of the authors of the Science article, “Defaunation in the Anthropocene” — told The Santiago Times how the term came about.  Read more..