The decline in global wildlife populations accelerated between 2018 and 2020, according to a scientific assessment published on Thursday by the WWF, which warned that the world is fast approaching irreversible tipping points for nature and climate.
Between 1970 and 2020, the average size of monitored wildlife populations plummeted by 73%, said the WWF and the Zoological Society of London’s (ZSL) biennial Living Planet report.
In the 2022 edition of the assessment, covering the 1970-2018 period, the measured decrease stood at 69%.
“Globally, we are reaching points of no return and irreversibly affecting the planet’s life-support systems. We are seeing the effects of deforestation and the transformation of natural ecosystems, intensive land use, and climate change,” said Susana Muhamad, COP16 president and Colombia’s Environment Minister.
The steepest falls in wildlife populations were observed in Latin America and the Caribbean (95%), Africa (76%), and Asia–Pacific (60%), while Europe and North America recorded lower drops of 35% and 39%, respectively.
Overall, freshwater species suffered the heaviest declines, falling by 85%, followed by terrestrial (69%) and marine populations (56%).
Notably, migratory fish species, which make up the main volume of freshwater catch, plunged by an average of 81% since 1970.
As many as 97% of species listed under the Convention of Migratory Species (CMS) are threatened with extinction, according to a separate UN report released in February.
KEY DRIVERS
Habitat degradation and loss, driven primarily by food production, were cited as the main threats to wildlife species, followed by overexploitation, habitat invasion by other species, and disease.
Other drivers include climate change, particularly in Latin America and the Caribbean, as well as pollution.
“Today’s report on catastrophic wildlife loss is a stark reminder of the consequences of continued exploitation of nature and the failure to prioritise its recovery and restoration,” said Michael Burgass, director of consultancy Biodiversify.
“With the science clearly laid out, governments and businesses now have a crucial opportunity to reverse this damage and foster an environment that safeguards both biodiversity and humanity.”
Unless urgent actions are taken to reverse this trend, the world risks passing dangerous tipping points, such as the mass die-off of coral reefs, the collapse of the subpolar gyre, a circular current south of Greenland, and the melting of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets, said the report.
“The decisions made between now and 2030 will determine whether we can avoid [them],” said Kirsten Schuijt, director general of WWF International.
“Declines in monitored wildlife populations function as an early warning indicator of the potential loss of ecosystem function and resilience. This doesn’t just affect the species concerned – as human beings, we rely on these ecosystems too.”
Based on almost 35,000 population trends and 5,495 species of amphibians, birds, fish, mammals, and reptiles, the metric used for the assessment, known as Living Planet Index (LPI), has recently faced criticism for potentially overestimating wildlife declines.
“[LPI] suffers from several mathematical and statistical issues, leading to a bias towards an apparent decrease even for balanced populations,” said a study published in Springer Nature in June.
“This does not mean that, in reality, there is no overall decrease in vertebrate populations. The current phase of the Anthropocene is … characterised by more complex changes than the simple disappearance of vertebrate populations.”
In August, a separate study found that the overlap between humans and wildlife is expected to grow across more than half of land worldwide by 2070.
Increases will be driven primarily by the expansion of the human population rather than a change in wildlife distribution caused by the climate crisis, according to the researchers.
By Sergio Colombo – sergio@carbon-pulse.com
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