Stockholm (NordSIP) – According to the World Wildlife Fund‘s (WWF) Living Planet Report 2024 the average size of monitored wildlife populations fell by 73% between 1970 and 2020.
The report warns that parts of our planet are approaching dangerous tipping points driven by the combination of nature loss and climate change which pose grave threats to humanity. The steepest decline is in freshwater populations (85%), followed by terrestrial (69%) and then marine (56%).
“Nature provides the foundation for human health, a stable climate, the world’s economy, and life on earth. The Living Planet Report updates fifty-year trend lines of how much we’ve lost and tipping points that lie ahead,” said WWF-US President and CEO Carter Roberts. “It highlights the most powerful tools to stem the loss and match the scale of this slow-motion catastrophe. A wake-up call that we need to get going, and fast.”
Methodology and Main Threats
These measurements are made with the assistance of the Zoological Society of London’s (ZSL) Living Planet Index, which tracks almost 35,000 vertebrate populations of 5,495 species and covers mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles and fish. The headline figure reflects the average proportional change in monitored animal population sizes at sites around the world, not the number of individual animals lost, nor the number of populations lost.
According to the WWF report, habitat loss and degradation as well overharvesting, fuelled by the global food system, are the dominant threats to wildlife populations around the world, followed by invasive species, disease and climate change.
Significant declines in wildlife populations negatively impact the health and resilience of our environment and push nature closer to disastrous tipping points– critical thresholds resulting in substantial and potentially irreversible change. Regional tipping points, such as the decimation of North American pine forests, the destruction of the Amazon rainforest, and the mass die-off of coral reefs, have the potential to create shockwaves far beyond the immediate region, impacting food security, livelihoods, and economies.
“Sharp declines in wildlifee populations are a clear and urgent warning. These steep drops signal that nature is unraveling and becoming less resilient. When nature is compromised, it is more vulnerable to climate change and edges closer to dangerous and irreversible regional tipping points. When this happens in too many places around the globe, it threatens the very air we breathe, the water we drink, and the food we eat,” WWF Chief Scientist Rebecca Shaw, said on its occasion.
The Living Planet Index also reveals populations that have stabilized or increased due to effective conservation efforts, such as an increase in the sub-population of mountain gorillas of around 3% per year between 2010-2016 in the Virunga mountains in East Africa, as well as an increase from 0 to 6,800 in bison populations across central Europe between 1970 and 2020.
Wanted: Global Leadership
According to the Living Planet Report, national commitments and real-world practices are failing to meet the global commitments “to halt and reverse nature loss (the Global Biodiversity Framework), cap global temperature rise to 1.5ºC (the Paris Agreement), and increase human well-being (the UN Sustainable Development Goals).”
WWF points to the COP16 international biodiversity and the COP29 climate summits taking place this year as opportunities for global leaders to rise to the challenge. “WWF is calling for countries to develop and implement ambitious national nature and climate plans to halt biodiversity loss and cut emissions by reducing global overconsumption in food and energy in an equitable manner. WWF is also urging government and private sector leaders to scale up public and private investments and better align their climate, nature and sustainable development policies. Governments and businesses should act rapidly to eliminate activities with negative impacts on biodiversity and climate, and redirect finance toward activities that will deliver on global sustainability goals.”
