Statement 1 - Nature’s biological library is burning even before we catalogued the titles of all the books stocked there.

Statement 2 -  A large fraction of these species faces the threat of becoming extinct even before we discover them.

Statement 1 and 2 are correct.

There are probably more than 1,00,000 plant species and more than 3,00, 000 animal species yet to be discovered and described. The biological wealth of our planet has been declining rapidly and the accusing finger is clearly pointing to human activities. The colonisation of tropical Pacific Islands by humans is said to have led to the extinction of more than 2,000 species of native birds. The IUCN Red List (2004) documents the extinction of 784 species (including 338 vertebrates, 359 invertebrates and 87 plants) in the last 500 years.

The situation appears more hopeless when we realise that a large fraction of these species faces the threat of becoming extinct even before we discover them. Nature’s biological library is burning even before we catalogued the titles of all the books stocked there.