All over the world, the numbers of wild animal species are declining. On average, they fell 69 percent between 1970 and 2018, according to a new report from the World Wide Fund for Nature and the World Wide Fund for Nature.
“The message is clear and the warning lights are flashing red,” WWF Secretary General Marco Lambertini wrote.
The Living Planet report is a major publication of the WWF, and is issued in a new issue every two years.
This report differs from previous reports, and the database is much larger. In total, the WWF considered 32,000 populations and 5,230 species.
This is still just a small group of species in the world. Organizing Our Lives in Data, I looked earlier at the limitations In the ways described in the report, it was last published in 2020.
This report confirms that the planet is in the midst of a biodiversity and climate crisis, and we have one last chance to act, writes the World Wildlife Fund.
One million species are at risk of extinction. Between 1-2.5 percent of the world’s species have already disappeared from Earth, the WWF claims.
Sharks
One notable example in WWF is the shark. The number of Whitefin sharks has decreased, in three generations, by 95 percent. It is endangered.
Overall, the number of marine sharks and rays has declined by more than 70 percent on average since 1970, mainly due to overfishing, he writes. The New York Times.
Shark is important to the ocean ecosystem, but has recently become in demand as food and for use in medicine.
Sharks are at the top of the food chain and are important for maintaining the balance of marine ecosystems, as well as being an important food source for some local people, WWF Norway Assistant Secretary-General Else Hendel tells NRK.
The report notes that overfishing of different species of sharks can have dire and uncertain consequences. This can lead to significant functional changes in the food webs of which the shark is a part.
Threatened: The orangutan is an endangered species that is losing more and more of its habitat. Here is one in Borneo in Malaysia.
Photo: Richard Barrett/WWF UK
Uses 1.7 balls
The report deals with the “footprints” left by humanity on Earth. Among other things in the form of resources and land use.
According to the WWF, humans now use more than 75 percent of the Earth’s capacity annually. To maintain today’s lifestyle and use nature, we need 1.75 planets.
This overconsumption is eroding nature’s health, and with it humanity’s prospects, writes the WWF.
Half of the global economy is directly dependent on nature.
What we depend on is that ecosystems work. It’s a big game of chance we’re working on, Hendel says.
We want clearer goals for nature
One of the most important measures the World Wildlife Fund points out to reduce and reverse biodiversity loss are tangible goals.
In 2015, the Paris Agreement was adopted at the Paris Climate Summit. Practically all UN member states have acceded to the convention. One of the goals of the agreement is to have net zero global greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
The WWF wants a similar agreement on natural diversity. They want an agreement in which the goal is for the countries of the world to reverse the trend by 2030.
They hope to put this in place at the Nature Summit in Montreal in December.
It’s a golden opportunity to turn the tide. What has to be in place, Hendel says, is a binding agreement that sets ambitious enough goals.
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