In Just 50 Years, Earth's Wildlife Populations Have Plummeted More Than Two-Thirds

Global animal, bird and fish populations have plummeted more than two-thirds in less than 50 years due to rampant over-consumption, experts said Thursday in a stark warning to save nature in order to save ourselves.

Human activity has severely degraded three quarters of all land and 40 percent of Earth's oceans, and our quickening destruction of nature is likely to have untold consequences on our health and livelihoods.

The Living Planet Index, which tracks more than 4,000 species of vertebrates, warned that increasing deforestation and agricultural expansion were the key drivers behind a 68 percent average decline in populations between 1970 and 2016.

It warned that continued natural habitat loss increased the risk of future pandemics as humans expand their presence into ever closer contact with wild animals.

2020's Living Planet Report, a collaboration between WWF International and the Zoological Society of London, is the 13th edition of the biennial publication tracking wildlife populations around the world.

WWF International director general Marco Lambertini told AFP of the staggering loss of Earth's biodiversity since 1970.


https://www.sciencealert.com/animal-populations-around-the-globe-have-dropped-by-two-thirds-in-just-50-years

It can all be cured in a few years, including climate change if two thirds of the world's human population plummeted, we can't do much about that all at once of course as its the mighty human race, however much of a detritus some of them are and others as about as much use as a chocolate tea pot but we have to get control of human numbers and stop reproducing as we are. Humans are having the same effect on the planet as a virus in a body.

Well said Vintage. Humans are a cancer to animals.

Everybody is concerned about this stuff, but nobody wants to do anything about it. The best of intentions are getting us nowhere, and what we need to do if we really care is focus on the people who'd rather earn a quick profit than figure out a way to do business sustainably.

Ben Reilly wrote:Everybody is concerned about this stuff, but nobody wants to do anything about it. The best of intentions are getting us nowhere, and what we need to do if we really care is focus on the people who'd rather earn a quick profit than figure out a way to do business sustainably.

What we need to do is think about how us humans, treat each other, because we can’t give a fuck about animals until we sort ourselves out.

Or something along those lines. I ain’t got it all figured out but that seems a good place to start.

I see lots of adverts on TV for us to send money for starving kids. Why do people still keep having them when they know they'll never have the money to feed them? Two suggestions to stop this, 1--- all men to have the "Snip", 2------don't send money, send Contraceptives!

Vintage wrote:It can all be cured in a few years, including climate change if two thirds of the world's human population plummeted, we can't do much about that all at once of course as its the mighty human race, however much of a detritus some of them are and others as about as much use as a chocolate tea pot but we have to get control of human numbers and stop reproducing as we are. Humans are having the same effect on the planet as a virus in a body.

I agree over population is a problem.

BUT, you can find maps that show things like over-consumption, energy consumption, meat consumption and various other things are way higher in the West and developed nations in general. Land loss the agriculture, plus man-made climate change, are caused far more by developed nations over-consuming than by developing nations over-populating.

People in developing nations having large families is partly to blame for their own poverty, but not so much for the problems faced by our planet and our wildlife.

That said, I'm as hypocritical as the next 'westerner' if I say my habits aren't part of the problem.

I understand people in poorer countries have lots of children as an insurance for old age where there is no state pensions or health care. The problem is that because of the poverty so many children don't make it to adulthood so it goes round and round.
Even Africa now has populations moving into habitat that was almost untouched by humans, we have species moving or trying to move away from this with no where to go then there are inevitable clashes between human needs and animal needs and of course human needs always win. Then there's the diseases which don't have much impact on the animals but if they manage to jump to humans the effect can be devastating - maybe nature's only way to push back? We are also draining aquifers to provide water for ever expanding populations what happens when this has gone - its taken centuries in some cases to fill them in the first place.

It saddens me to think that we first started to really, seriously understand the problems facing the environment in the late 60s/early 70s.

We've pissed away 50 years that could have been spent changing our approach to natural resources. Instead, we've had to debate whether it was happening in the first place, whether it was our fault, and what, if anything to do about it. Even whether it's the will of God!

Anything besides burning fewer fossil fuels and destroying fewer natural habitats. And all in the name of a quick profit at the expense of our home.

There will come a generation of people that will have to explain lions and tigers and bears to its kids when they watch The Wizard of Oz, because those animals will be extinct.

Think I'm kidding? In the wild, there are a little more than a million bears, about 20,000 lions, and less than 4,000 tigers left -- in the entire world.