Calling for action to save the planet

Global wildlife populations have plunged by 73% in the last 50 years, a new report has found, painting a grim picture of the state of global biodiversity. This decline, the report warned, is pushing the planet to the point of no return, as the effects of nature loss combine with the climate crisis. But, instead of treating the findings as a source of doom, the report asked governments to view them as early indicators of increasing extinction risk and potential loss of healthy ecosystems, and called for urgent, concerted action to help plateau, if not reverse, the scale of this decline.

The biennial Living Planet Report identified habitat loss and degradation, and overharvesting, driven primarily by our global food system, as the dominant threats to wildlife populations around the world, followed by invasive species, disease, and the climate crisis. It also singled out pollution as an additional threat in Asia and the Pacific, which have recorded a staggering 60% average decline. The steepest declines were seen in Latin America and the Caribbean, Africa, and Asia and the Pacific. The strongest decline was observed in freshwater ecosystems (85%), followed by terrestrial (69%) and marine (56%).

The release of the report, weeks before the CoP16 biodiversity summit in Colombia, where countries will meet for the first time since agreeing on a set of international targets to halt the degradation of biodiversity, is significant. While compliance with targets on the environment has been questionable in the recent past, CoP16 president Susana Muhamad’s call to “take action to avoid collapse” lends hope. If not, the interconnectedness of nature, climate, and human well-being might be at peril as the freefall of life on the planet continues.

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