Wildlife populations have fallen by more than two-thirds in less than 50 years, according to a major report by the conservation group WWF.
The report says this “catastrophic decline” shows no sign of slowing.
And it warns that nature is being destroyed by humans at a rate never seen before.
Wildlife is “in freefall” as we burn forests, over-fish our seas and destroy wild areas, says Tanya Steele, chief executive at WWF.
“We are wrecking our world – the one place we call home – risking our health, security and survival here on Earth. Now nature is sending us a desperate SOS and time is running out.”
What do the numbers mean?
The report looked at thousands of different wildlife species monitored by conservation scientists in habitats across the world.
They recorded an average 68% fall in more than 20,000 populations of mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles and fish since 1970.
Read more
WWF – Living Planet Report 2020
Executive Summary
The global Living Planet Index continues to decline. It shows an
average 68% decrease in population sizes of mammals, birds,
amphibians, reptiles and fish between 1970 and 2016. A 94%
decline in the LPI for the tropical subregions of the Americas is the
largest fall observed in any part of the world.
Why does this matter?
It matters because biodiversity is fundamental to human life on
Earth, and the evidence is unequivocal – it is being destroyed by us
at a rate unprecedented in history. Since the industrial revolution,
human activities have increasingly destroyed and degraded forests,
grasslands, wetlands and other important ecosystems, threatening
human well-being. Seventy-five per cent of the Earth’s ice-free land
surface has already been significantly altered, most of the oceans
are polluted, and more than 85% of the area of wetlands has
been lost.
Species population trends are important because they are a
measure of overall ecosystem health. Measuring biodiversity,
the variety of all living things, is complex, and there is no single
measure that can capture all of the changes in this web of life.
Nevertheless, the vast majority of indicators show net declines over
recent decades.
That’s because in the last 50 years our world has been transformed
by an explosion in global trade, consumption and human
population growth, as well as an enormous move towards
urbanisation. Until 1970, humanity’s Ecological Footprint was
smaller than the Earth’s rate of regeneration. To feed and fuel our
21st century lifestyles, we are overusing the Earth’s biocapacity by at
least 56%.
These underlying trends are driving the unrelenting destruction
of nature, with only a handful of countries retaining most of the
last remaining wilderness areas. Our natural world is transforming
more rapidly than ever before, and climate change is further
accelerating the change.
Tigers, pandas and polar bears are well-known species in the
story of biodiversity decline, but what of the millions of tiny, or
as-yet-undiscovered, species that are also under threat? What is
happening to the life in our soils, or in plant and insect diversity?
All of these provide fundamental support for life on Earth and are
showing signs of stress.
Biodiversity loss threatens food security and urgent action is
needed to address the loss of the biodiversity that feeds the
world. Where and how we produce food is one of the biggest
human-caused threats to nature and our ecosystems, making the
transformation of our global food system more important than ever.
The transformation of our economic systems is also critical.
Our economies are embedded within nature, and it is only by
recognising and acting on this reality that we can protect and
enhance biodiversity and improve our economic prosperity.
We can estimate the value of ‘natural capital’ – the planet’s stock of
renewable and non-renewable natural resources, like plants, soils
and minerals – alongside values of produced and human capital –
for example, roads and skills – which together form a measure of a
country’s true wealth. Data from the United Nations Environment
Programme shows that, per person, our global stock of natural
capital has declined by nearly 40% since the early 1990s, while
produced capital has doubled and human capital has increased
by 13%.
But too few of our economic and financial decision-makers know
how to interpret what we are hearing, or, even worse, they choose
not to tune in at all. A key problem is the mismatch between the
artificial ‘economic grammar’ which drives public and private policy
and ‘nature’s syntax’ which determines how the real world operates.
Together this evidence shows that biodiversity conservation is more
than an ethical commitment for humanity: it is a non-negotiable
and strategic investment to preserve our health, wealth
and security.
Can we reverse these trends of decline? WWF co-founded a new
research initiative – the Bending the Curve Initiative – that has
developed pioneering modelling, providing a ‘proof of concept’
that we can halt, and reverse, terrestrial biodiversity loss from
land-use change. And the models are all telling us the same thing:
that we still have an opportunity to flatten, and reverse, the loss of
nature if we take urgent and unprecedented conservation action
and make transformational changes in the way we produce and
consume food.
2020 was billed as a ‘super year’ of climate, biodiversity and
sustainable development meetings in which the international
community had great plans to take the reins of the Anthropocene.
The COVID-19 pandemic has meant that most of these conferences
are now scheduled for 2021, and has provided a stark reminder of
how nature and humans are intertwined.
Until now, decades of words and warnings have not changed
modern human society’s business-as-usual trajectory. Yet in times
of rapid upheaval and disruption new ideas, creativity, processes
and opportunities for transformation can arise. The future is always
uncertain but perhaps the COVID-19 pandemic will spur us on to
embrace this unexpected opportunity and revolutionise how we
take care of our home.
A full copy of the WWF report can be viewed here: https://f.hubspotusercontent20.net/hubfs/4783129/LPR/PDFs/ENGLISH-FULL.pdf
