According to The Living Planet Report 2024, global wildlife populations have shrunk by an average of 73% in the past 50 years.

The report, undertaken by the World Wide Fund for Nature, is a comprehensive overview of the state of the natural world, a stocktake of the world’s wildlife.

Loss of habitat caused by human population growth and activity has been cited as one of the primary causes of species decline. WWF UK head Tanya Steele described the loss of wild spaces as “putting many ecosystems on the brink”, and stating that many habitats, from the Amazon to coral reefs, were “on the edge of very dangerous tipping points”.

The report is based on the Living Planet Index of more than 5,000 bird, mammal, amphibian, reptile and fish population counts over five decades. Among the many snapshots of human-induced wildlife loss, it reveals that 60% of the world’s Amazon pink river dolphins have been wiped out by pollution and other threats, including civil unrest and mining.

The report did capture some hopeful glimmers of conservation success, including a sub-population of mountain gorillas in the Virunga Mountains of East Africa which increased by about 3% per year between 2010 and 2016. But the WWF is adamant these “isolated successes are not enough, amid a backdrop of the widespread destruction of habitats”.

Tom Oliver, a professor of ecology at the University of Reading, who is unconnected with the report, stated that when this information was combined with other datasets, such as insect decline, “we can piece together a robust – and worrying – picture of global biodiversity collapse”.

The Living Planet Report found habitat degradation and loss was the biggest threat to wildlife, followed by overexploitation, invasive species, disease, climate change and pollution.

Lead author of the report and WWF chief scientific adviser Mike Barrett said through human action, “particularly the way that we produce and consume our food, we are increasingly losing natural habitat”.

The report also warns that climate change and nature loss are fast pushing the world towards an irreversible tipping point, including the potential ‘collapse’ of the Amazon rainforest, whereby it can no longer mitigate the impacts of climate change by locking away planet-warming carbon.

“Please don’t just feel sad about the loss of nature,” Barrett said. “Be aware that this is now a fundamental threat to humanity and we’ve really got to do something now.”

Valentina Marconi, from the Zoological Society of London’s Institute of Zoology, told BBC News the natural world was in a “precarious position” urging that only collective action from world leaders offered “the chance to reverse this”.

This latest alarm call for Earth’s wildlife comes as world leaders prepare to gather for the United Nations Biodiversity Conference, in Colombia, to discuss how to restore nature.

WWF’s Tanya Steele told BBC News: “The report is an incredible wake-up call. Healthy ecosystems underpin our health, prosperity and wellbeing. We don’t think this sits on the shoulders of the average citizen – it’s the responsibility of business and of government. We need to look after our land and our most precious wild places for future generations.”

Submitted by Friends of Retha


The Message is the ground-breaking debut novel by Yan Vana, a thought-provoking and critically acclaimed book that will change the way you think about overpopulation and the near future of earth.