At a place where the natures of three continents meet we want to build a future for us all by turning a bay into an indigenous wild life park with a research centre open to the public where we can do what is necessary to set life free again.

In theory, virtually all the world’s governments are committed to limiting the damage. In 1992, at the Earth summit in Rio de Janeiro, they signed a treaty called the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). In 2002, under its auspices, they vowed to bring about “a significant reduction” in the rate of loss of biodiversity by 2010. The pledge became one of the Millennium Development Goals, the United Nations’ eight fondest ambitions for the world.

Yet this target now looks unattainable, said most participants at the World Conservation Congress, which concluded in Barcelona on October 14th. The meeting was awash with gloomy forecasts. The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the network of conservation groups that organised the congress, released the latest version of its “red list” of threatened species. It describes the health of all species whose populations have been assessed—almost 45,000 this time round. At first glance, the proportion of species at risk seemed to have fallen slightly. But that, the compilers note, simply reflects the expansion of its coverage beyond the creatures seen as most in danger. Of 223 species whose status has changed since last year, 82% were closer to extinction.

Last year, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which is studying global warming for the UN, said 20-30% of species could die out if global average temperatures rise by more than 2°C or so. And even today’s rate of extinctions, one Barcelona delegate noted, is 1,000 times faster than the norm before man made a mess.

What does the loss of other species cost humans? Many congress- goers talked about valuing “ecosystem services”: natural processes that benefit people, such as the pollination of crops, the purification of water in wetlands and the sequestration of carbon in soil and forests. A study released this year said the world was losing €50 billion ($68 billion) in ecosystem services each year because of damage to nature.