Saving Nature Will Require a Societal 'Transformation'

Enough is enough, says the World Wildlife Fund's Living Planet Report, released Wednesday, calling on governments and companies to "act rapidly to eliminate activities with negative impacts on biodiversity and climate" before it's too late. The report describes a 73% decline in the average size of monitored populations of mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles, and fish from 1970 to 2020. Across 35,000 groups of 5,495 species, freshwater populations fell 85%, land populations dropped 69%, and marine populations decreased by 56%.

• Looking closer: Populations of Chinook salmon in California's Sacramento River declined 88%, Amazon pink river dolphins declined 65%, and nesting female hawksbill turtles on Milman Island in Australia's Great Barrier Reef Marine Park declined 57%.

• By region: Populations have declined 95% in Latin America and the Caribbean, 76% in Africa, 60% in the Asia–Pacific, 39% in North America, and 35% in Europe and Central Asia, per the report.
• What it means: "You're going to have troubles supporting and sustaining human health and well-being over time" as "vertebrate populations underpin ecosystem health and the services we get from ecosystems like stable climate, abundant and clean water, healthy soils to grow food, [and] productive fisheries that supply people with protein," WWF Chief Scientist Rebecca Shaw says, per the Washington Post.

• Underlying issues: Major threats to wildlife include habitat degradation and loss, overexploitation, invasive species, disease, human-fuelled climate change, and pollution. About 40% of all habitable land is used for human food production, the report notes.
• How to act: Shaw notes consuming less animal protein and taking care to avoid food waste is a good start, per the Post. But "we don't think this sits on the shoulders of the average citizen—it's the responsibility of business and of government," WWF UK head Tanya Steele tells the BBC. "We need action that meets the scale of the challenge," reads the report, calling for "nothing less than a transformation of our food, energy and finance systems."
• Pushback: A critique published by Springer Nature in June highlights what scientists say are "mathematical and statistical issues" with the index, "leading to a bias towards an apparent decrease even for balanced populations," per the Guardian. But "this does not mean that in reality there is no overall decrease in vertebrate populations."

(More nature stories.)