Global pop­u­la­tions of ver­te­brates — mam­mals, birds, rep­tiles, amphib­ians, and fish — have declined by 58 per­cent between 1970 and 2012, states The Liv­ing Planet report 2016 from World Wildlife Fund (WWF). Ani­mals liv­ing in the world’s lakes, rivers, and fresh­wa­ter sys­tems have expe­ri­enced the most dra­matic pop­u­la­tion declines, at 81 per­cent. Because of human activ­ity, the report states that with­out imme­di­ate inter­ven­tion global wildlife pop­u­la­tions could drop two-​thirds by 2020.

“We cre­ated this prob­lem. The good news is that we can fix it. It requires updat­ing our approach to food, energy, trans­porta­tion, and how we live our lives. We share the same planet. We rely on it for our sur­vival. So we are all respon­si­ble for its pro­tec­tion,” added Carter Roberts.

The top threat to wildlife is habi­tat loss and degra­da­tion, dri­ven pri­mar­ily by increas­ing demand for food and energy. Accord­ing to the report, global food pro­duc­tion is the lead­ing cause for destruc­tion of habi­tats and over­ex­ploita­tion of wildlife. Agri­cul­ture cur­rently occu­pies approx­i­mately one-​third of Earth’s total land area and accounts for 70 per­cent of all fresh­wa­ter use.

Wild ani­mals are not the only ones at risk; the report states that increased pres­sure threat­ens the nat­ural resources that all life — includ­ing human­ity — depend on.

The report demon­strates the need to rethink how we pro­duce, con­sume, mea­sure suc­cess and value the nat­ural envi­ron­ment, and calls for an urgent sys­tem change by indi­vid­u­als, busi­nesses and gov­ern­ments. The report also illus­trates the pos­i­tive momen­tum that is build­ing by high­light­ing recent global agree­ments on cli­mate change and sus­tain­able devel­op­ment. In par­tic­u­lar, the report rec­og­nizes the 2030 Agenda for Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment as an essen­tial guide to decision-​making that can ensure that the envi­ron­ment is val­ued along­side eco­nomic and social interests.

“A strong nat­ural envi­ron­ment is the key to defeat­ing poverty, improv­ing health and devel­op­ing a just and pros­per­ous future,” said Marco Lam­ber­tini, WWF direc­tor gen­eral. “We have proven that we know what it takes to build a resilient planet for future gen­er­a­tions, we just need to act on that knowledge.”

‘Liv­ing Planet Report 2016: Risk and resilience in a new era’ is the eleventh edi­tion of WWF’s bien­nial flag­ship pub­li­ca­tion. The report tracks over 14,000 ver­te­brate pop­u­la­tions of over 3,700 species from 1970 to 2012 and includes research from the Global Foot­print Net­work and the Zoo­log­i­cal Soci­ety of Lon­don.

WWF Liv­ing Planet Report 2016 — sum­mary

WWF Liv­ing Planet Report 2016 — full

(Source: WWF press release, 26.10.2016)