Habitat destruction and intensive farming are causing biodiversity loss to a dangerous extent, according to a new study published in the leading journal Science and reported in the Guardian Environment column.

An international study of 1.8million sites found that biodiversity - the number of species - has dropped by more than 10% across over 58% of sites studied. This level of species loss had previously been identified as being enough to cause long term negative effects on human populations.

For the full article click here (external website).-