Global wildlife populations have plummeted by 69% on average since 1970 according to a report looking at trends in global biodiversity and the health of the planet.
The Living Planet Report 2022 is a collaborative study by the World Wildlife Fund and the Zoological Society of London and its report released Wednesday found a staggering rate of decline.
“This is a severe warning that the rich biodiversity that sustains all life on our planet is in crisis, putting every species at risk – including us.
The climate and nature crisis is not only an environmental issue, but an economic, development, security, social, moral and ethical issue too. Our world’s most vulnerable people, places and wildlife – and those least responsible for the climate and nature crisis – are at greatest risk, and already suffering,” the report finds
While conservation efforts are helping, urgent action is required, the report said, in order to reverse the loss of nature this decade.
The Living Planet Index (LPI) is a measure of the state of the world’s biological diversity based on population trends of vertebrate species from terrestrial, freshwater and marine habitats.
The LPI has been adopted by the Convention of Biological Diversity (CBD) as an indicator of progress towards its 2011-2020 targets and can play an important role in monitoring progress towards the post-2020 goals and targets negotiated at COP15 this December.
in inaccurate headlines when journalists misinterpreted or overstated its results.
The assessment’s latest number, issued Wednesday by 89 authors from around the world, is its most alarming yet: From 1970 to 2018, monitored populations of vertebrates declined an average of 69 percent.
That’s more than two-thirds in only 48 years.
This year alone, we’ve seen our forests burning, our rivers and oceans polluted, record temperatures hit across the world, thousands of homes lost to extreme flooding, wildfires and rising sea levels, and food supplies decimated by droughts. The evidence is clearer than ever – we are living through the dual crises of catastrophic nature loss and climate change, driven by the unsustainable use of our planet’s resources. Unless we stop treating these emergencies as two separate issues, neither problem will be addressed effectively.
