The statistics are stark and alarming.Populations of mammals, of birds, of fish declines between 1970 and the year 2014 by 60 percent globally.And in fresh water, habitats, the figure is some 83 percent.And it’s no surprise that human activity is mainly to blame.
Human activity is the driver of the declines we’re seeing, primarily our demand, our increasing demand for food, energy, water.That activity is driving climate change,but the authors say there are lessons we can learn from how the world came together to act on curbing greenhouse gases.We think about how the world responded to the climate threat and forge a pact in Paris in 2015 to address climate change.We need a similar deal at the global level for people in nature.
And Cesareo points the success stories like the giant pandas’ recovery and the rising population of tigers in the wild as proof that what is happening is reversible.The report is very sobering.
I think the, the message is also that it’s not too late to course-correct.Life is resilient.It bounces back and so if we take concerted action, we can reverse these trends, and ensure a living planet for future generations.To help life bounce back, the World Wildlife Fund is calling on governments to sign onto a Convention on Biological Diversity in 2020.It creates a pathway to conserve the world’s wild places and reverse the planets shrinking biodiversity.And it has set targets for things like area, percentage of area to be protected under pacts,and indigenous reserves, and other types of community conserved areas.The WWF says all of the resources the earth provides us in terms of food, lumber and energy for instance all told are worth about 125 trillion dollars a year.The goal now is to find a way to make all that rich, natural biodiversity sustainable and available for generations to come.