2024 WWF LIVING PLANET REPORT: A System in Peril.
CACOR member Ian White circulated this new report in Mid-October 2024.
Nature is being lost––with huge implications for us all.
Biodiversity sustains human life and underpins our societies. Yet every indicator that tracks the state of nature on a global scale shows a decline.
Over the past 50 years (1970–2020), the average size of monitored wildlife populations has shrunk by 73%, as measured by the Living Planet Index (LPI). This is based on almost 35,000 population trends and 5,495 species of amphibians, birds, fish, mammals, and reptiles. Freshwater populations have suffered the heaviest declines, falling by 85%, followed by terrestrial (69%) and marine populations (56%).
At a regional level, the fastest declines have been seen in Latin America and the Caribbean––a concerning 95% decline––followed by Africa (76%) and the Asia and the Pacific (60%). Declines have been less dramatic in Europe and Central Asia (35%) and North America (39%), but this reflects the fact that large-scale impacts on nature were already apparent before 1970 in these regions: some populations have stabilized or increased thanks to conservation efforts and species reintroductions. Habitat degradation and loss, driven primarily by our food system, is the most reported threat in each region, followed by overexploitation, invasive species and disease. Other threats include climate change (most cited in Latin America and the Caribbean) and pollution (particularly in North America and Asia and the Pacific).
By monitoring changes in the size of species populations over time, the LPI is an early warning indicator for extinction risk and helps us understand the health of ecosystems. When a population falls below a certain level, that species may not be able to perform its usual role within the ecosystem––whether that’s seed dispersal, pollination, grazing, nutrient cycling, or the many other processes that keep ecosystems functioning. Stable populations over the long term provide resilience against disturbances like disease and extreme weather events; a decline in populations, as shown in the global LPI, decreases resilience and threatens the functioning of the ecosystem. This in turn undermines the benefits that ecosystems provide to people––from food, clean water and carbon storage for a stable climate to the broader contributions that nature makes to our cultural, social, and spiritual well-being.
[much more]