2024-10-10 04:05:00
“A grim conclusion,” writes World Wildlife Fund (WWF) director Kirsten Schuijt in her foreword to the latest Living Planet Report, which WWF published on Thursday. Wildlife populations have declined by an average of 73 percent between 1970 and 2020. Two years ago that was 69 percent, and although those percentages are not comparable one-to-one, because not all populations are the same, the trend is unmistakable.
Crucial ecosystems
Schuijt calls the new figure ‘alarming’. The decline in wildlife is not only worrying for nature, but is also an indicator of ‘the relentless pressure from the combination of climate and nature crises on the natural regulatory system of our living planet’. Together, global warming and biodiversity loss are throwing crucial ecosystems out of balance. It was not without reason that the report was subtitled ‘A system in danger’.
“The report says something about forests and rivers, about habitats. Species are faring less well because their habitats are under pressure,” explains Jelle de Jong, director of WWF Netherlands. “That also says something about humans, who depend on habitats for food, water, medicine and the quality of the air we breathe.”
Not too late yet
WWF warns that ecosystems such as the Amazon, the polar regions and coral reefs are approaching tipping points due to ocean warming, ice melting and deforestation of tropical rainforest. “20 percent of the Amazon has now been deforested,” De Jong explains. “The rainforest produces its own rain and the system is still robust enough to maintain itself. But if we keep taking bites out of it for our food production, and especially for growing animal feed, things will go wrong at some point.”
It is not too late, says De Jong. “We must work towards positive tipping points. This can be done through different food production, different energy generation and different financing, all three of which are more sustainable and fairer. According to the IMF, 7 trillion dollars annually goes to subsidies for oil, gas and coal, which are harmful to nature and the climate. Only 8 percent is enough to finance all set nature goals.”
This will not work with the existing economic strategy, De Jong knows. “It keeps putting us on the wrong track. If we cut down the Amazon, it will have a positive effect on the economy. For a moment. But in the long run it is disastrous. Because more than half of the global economy is somewhat or more dependent on nature. Of water, air and soil.”
Governments must act
Giving space to rivers, as happened in the Netherlands, has a positive effect on nature. Targeted actions to protect nature have slowed the rate at which species become extinct by a quarter. “But just protecting nature is not enough. Governments have committed to reducing poverty in the United Nations Sustainable Goals, to net zero emissions by 2050 in the Paris Climate Agreement and to protecting 30 percent of the Earth’s surface by 2030 in the Montreal Biodiversity Agreement. We know how to do it. Now we have to do it too.”
Loss greatest where biodiversity is high
For the Living Planet Report, which WWF is publishing for the fifteenth time this year, the Zoological Society London (ZSL) analyzed 35,000 populations of 5,495 species in the period 1970-2020. This concerns vertebrates: mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles and fish. The average decline is greatest in freshwater species at 85 percent, terrestrial species declined by 69 percent and marine species by 65 percent. Areas with the highest biodiversity suffer the greatest losses: Latin America and the Caribbean -95 percent, Africa -76 percent, Asia-Pacific -60 percent. In Europe (-35) and North America (-39), nature had already deteriorated considerably before 1970.
Also read:
Two crises, one solution: more nature
Two crises, one approach. The ‘double emergency’ of climate change and biodiversity loss can be solved with more nature, the World Wildlife Fund says in a report.
1728573337
#number #wild #animals #declining #sharply #disastrous #people
