The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) announced on Tuesday the heartbreaking reality of wild animal populations on Earth. Mammals, birds, fish, reptiles and amphibians decreased by 60% between 1970 and 2014 as a result of the impact of mankind.
Preserving nature is not just protecting the tigers, pandas, and whales we appreciate,”
said WWF director Marco Lambertini.
It is much more: there cannot be a healthy and prosperous future for men on a planet with destabilized climate, depleted oceans, degraded soils, and empty forests, a planet stripped of its biodiversity,”
added Lambertini.
The decline of fauna affects the entire planet. Some of the regions particularly harmed include the Tropics, according to the 12th edition of this report published by the Zoological Society of London. It is also based on a detailed study conducted with 16,700 populations (four thousand species). North America and Greenland have better results, with fauna at -23%. Finally, the broad area of Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East have -31%.
The first explanation would be the loss of habitats due to intensive agriculture, mining or urbanization, which lead to deforestation, depletion or use of artificial soils. In Brazil, which has just elected a president whose government plan does not address the issues of deforestation or global warming, the Amazon rainforest is increasingly reduced.
Additionally, there’s overfishing, pollution, poaching, invasive species, climate change and diseases.
We are the first generation to have a clear vision of the value of nature and our impact on it. We could also be the last to reverse the trend,”
warned the WWF, which calls for action before 2020, seeing this year as a decisive moment in history.