"We've lacked that," Mooney said.
Mooney and his co-authors want to create a panel of the world's best scientists to evaluate the available research and provide ongoing assessments.
The findings would be reviewed publicly, taking input not only from other scientists, but also from governments and nongovernmental agencies.
The final product, he said, would offer "one-stop shopping" for the public and policymakers, making it "the focal point for all of these complex issues."
The panel's pronouncements would undoubtedly produce political opposition from some sectors, he says.
"But 99 percent of the scientific community would agree [with the panel's advice] if the assessment was authoritative, transparent, and intensively reviewed," Mooney said.
Losing Life
In May the World Conservation Union (IUCN) announced that more than 40 percent of species that have been assessed worldwide are threatened with extinction.
Polar bears and hippopotamuses were added to IUCN's Red List of Threatened Species for the first time, bringing the list's total to 40,177 species (photos: "Selected Species From 2006 'Red List'").
Declining diversity in the world's ecosystems can have enormous impacts for humans.
The loss of mangrove swamps in Asia, for example, means less of a buffer during tsunamis, leading to greater loss of life.
Agriculture is also affected. People spend a lot of money on pest control, Mooney says, but a lot of that expense is to do things natural predators once did for free.
For example, farmers spend money on imported bees to pollinate crops that might have been pollinated naturally if the habitats of native pollinators were preserved.
"We're losing these things, and somehow the general public doesn't seem to get it," Mooney said. "Part of not getting it is the lack of clear, authoritative international messages."
French President Jacques Chirac has lent his support to the proposed panel and is already funding a project to produce recommendations for panel members by early 2008.
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