Humanity has wiped out 60% of animals since 1970, major
report finds
The huge loss is a tragedy in itself but also threatens the
survival of civilisation, say the world’s leading scientists
Damian Carrington
@dpcarrington
Tue 30 Oct 2018 00.01 GMT Last modified on Tue 30 Oct 2018
09.06 GMT
Humanity has wiped out 60% of mammals, birds, fish and
reptiles since 1970, leading the world’s foremost experts to warn that the
annihilation of wildlife is now an emergency that threatens civilisation.
The new estimate of the massacre of wildlife is made in a
major report produced by WWF and involving 59 scientists from across the globe.
It finds that the vast and growing consumption of food and resources by the
global population is destroying the web of life, billions of years in the
making, upon which human society ultimately depends for clean air, water and
everything else.
“We are sleepwalking towards the edge of a cliff” said Mike
Barrett, executive director of science and conservation at WWF. “If there was a
60% decline in the human population, that would be equivalent to emptying North
America, South America, Africa, Europe, China and Oceania. That is the scale of
what we have done.”
“This is far more than just being about losing the wonders
of nature, desperately sad though that is,” he said. “This is actually now
jeopardising the future of people. Nature is not a ‘nice to have’ – it is our
life-support system.”
“We are rapidly running out of time,” said Prof Johan
Rockström, a global sustainability expert at the Potsdam Institute for Climate
Impact Research in Germany. “Only by addressing both ecosystems and climate do
we stand a chance of safeguarding a stable planet for humanity’s future on
Earth.”
Many scientists believe the world has begun a sixth mass
extinction, the first to be caused by a species – Homo sapiens. Other recent
analyses have revealed that humankind has destroyed 83% of all mammals and half
of plants since the dawn of civilisation and that, even if the destruction were
to end now, it would take 5-7 million years for the natural world to recover.
The Living Planet Index, produced for WWF by the Zoological
Society of London, uses data on 16,704 populations of mammals, birds, fish,
reptiles and amphibians, representing more than 4,000 species, to track the
decline of wildlife. Between 1970 and 2014, the latest data available,
populations fell by an average of 60%. Four years ago, the decline was 52%. The
“shocking truth”, said Barrett, is that the wildlife crash is continuing
unabated.
Wildlife and the ecosystems are vital to human life, said
Prof Bob Watson, one of the world’s most eminent environmental scientists and
currently chair of an intergovernmental panel on biodiversity that said in
March that the destruction of nature is as dangerous as climate change.
“Nature contributes to human wellbeing culturally and
spiritually, as well as through the critical production of food, clean water,
and energy, and through regulating the Earth’s climate, pollution, pollination
and floods,” he said. “The Living Planet report clearly demonstrates that human
activities are destroying nature at an unacceptable rate, threatening the
wellbeing of current and future generations.”
The biggest cause of wildlife losses is the destruction of
natural habitats, much of it to create farmland. Three-quarters of all land on
Earth is now significantly affected by human activities. Killing for food is
the next biggest cause – 300 mammal species are being eaten into extinction –
while the oceans are massively overfished, with more than half now being
industrially fished.
Chemical pollution is also significant: half the world’s
killer whale populations are now doomed to die from PCB contamination. Global
trade introduces invasive species and disease, with amphibians decimated by a
fungal disease thought to be spread by the pet trade.
The worst affected region is South and Central America,
which has seen an 89% drop in vertebrate populations, largely driven by the
felling of vast areas of wildlife-rich forest. In the tropical savannah called
cerrado, an area the size of Greater London is cleared every two months, said
Barrett.
“It is a classic example of where the disappearance is the
result of our own consumption, because the deforestation is being driven by
ever expanding agriculture producing soy, which is being exported to countries
including the UK to feed pigs and chickens,” he said. The UK itself has lost
much of its wildlife, ranking 189th for biodiversity loss out of 218 nations in
2016.
The habitats suffering the greatest damage are rivers and
lakes, where wildlife populations have fallen 83%, due to the enormous thirst
of agriculture and the large number of dams. “Again there is this direct link
between the food system and the depletion of wildlife,” said Barrett. Eating
less meat is an essential part of reversing losses, he said.
Humans just 0.01% of all life but have destroyed 83% of wild
mammals – study
Read more
The Living Planet Index has been criticised as being too
broad a measure of wildlife losses and smoothing over crucial details. But all
indicators, from extinction rates to intactness of ecosystems, show colossal
losses. “They all tell you the same story,” said Barrett.
Conservation efforts can work, with tiger numbers having
risen 20% in India in six years as habitat is protected. Giant pandas in China
and otters in the UK have also been doing well.
But Marco Lambertini, director general of WWF International,
said the fundamental issue was consumption: “We can no longer ignore the impact
of current unsustainable production models and wasteful lifestyles.”
The world’s nations are working towards a crunch meeting of
the UN’s Convention on Biological Diversity in 2020, when new commitments for
the protection of nature will be made. “We need a new global deal for nature
and people and we have this narrow window of less than two years to get it,”
said Barrett. “This really is the last chance. We have to get it right this
time.”
Tanya Steele, chief executive at WWF, said: “We are the
first generation to know we are destroying our planet and the last one that can
do anything about it.”
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