Cape Town - Freshwater species’ populations have suffered an 83% fall, while in tropical regions wildlife populations are plummeting at a staggering rate.
Monitored wildlife populations – mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles and fish – have seen a 69% decline on average since 1970.
These statistics are according to WWF’s Living Planet Report (LPR) 2022, which highlights the outlook of the state of nature.
WWF has now urgently warned governments, businesses and the public to take transformative action to reverse the destruction of biodiversity.
“With its biggest dataset yet, featuring almost 32 000 populations of 5 230 species, the Living Planet Index (LPI), provided within the report by ZSL (Zoological Society of London), shows it is within tropical regions that monitored vertebrate wildlife populations are plummeting at a particularly staggering rate.
“WWF is extremely concerned about this trend given that these geographical areas are some of the most biodiverse in the world. In particular the LPI data reveals that between 1970 and 2018, monitored wildlife populations in Latin America and the Caribbean region have dropped by 94% on average.
“In Africa, that figure is 66%. In less than a lifetime, monitored freshwater populations have fallen by an average of 83%, the largest decline of any species group. Habitat loss and barriers to migration routes are responsible for about half of the threats to monitored migratory fish species,” WWF said.
Some of the species populations captured in the LPI include the Amazon pink river dolphin population, which saw populations drop by 65% between 1994 and 2016 in the Mamirauá Sustainable Development Reserve in the Brazilian state of Amazonas; the eastern lowland gorilla, whose numbers saw an estimated 80% decline in DRC’s Kahuzi-Biega National Park between 1994 and 2019; and, populations of the Australian sea lion, which declined by 64% between 1977 and 2019.
Around the world, the report indicates that the main drivers of wildlife population decline were habitat degradation and loss, exploitation, the introduction of invasive species, pollution, climate change and disease.
Sectors can mitigate the twin crises. The authors call on policymakers to transform economies so that natural resources are properly valued.
WWF South Africa chief executive, Dr Morné du Plessis, said things had to change.
“If there is one key message from this year’s Living Planet Report, it is that the evidence of the damage we are doing to biological systems is incontrovertible. Although this is depressing to environmental organisations working to reverse this decline, what should fill us with some hope is that this signal can no longer be ignored.
“Businesses, governments, civil society and individuals must take urgent steps to protect nature and the biological systems that underpin our very existence as human beings. This is no longer an option but an imperative.”
Dr Andrew Terry, director of Conservation and Policy at ZSL, said: “The Living Planet Index highlights how we have cut away the very foundation of life and the situation continues to worsen. Half of the global economy and billions of people are directly reliant on nature.
“Preventing further biodiversity loss and restoring vital ecosystems has to be at the top of global agendas to tackle the mounting climate, environmental and public health crises.”
World leaders were expected to meet at the 15th Conference of Parties to the Convention of Biological Diversity (CBD COP15) in December.
WWF said it was advocating for leaders to commit to a “Paris-style” agreement capable of reversing biodiversity loss to secure a nature-positive world by 2030.
Cape Times