“Today we face the double, interlinked emergencies of human induced climate change and the loss of biodiversity, threatening the well-being of current and future generations,” the authors write in the report. “As our future is critically dependent on biodiversity and a stable climate, it is essential that we understand how nature’s decline and climate change are connected.” The drop measured in this two-year report follows a trend of progressively severe declines. By comparison, the decrease in population was a 68 percent loss in 2020 and 60 percent in 2018. The freshwater populations monitored in the report saw the greatest loss of any species group, with a decline of 83 percent since 1970. Barriers to annual migration and habitat loss made up half of the threats to freshwater organisms. Freshwater habitats are hotbeds of biodiversity, home to one-third of vertebrate species. They are also essential to food security, industries such as fisheries, and energy production. The index measures how wildlife populations have changed over time; it’s not a tally of individual animals that disappeared. Still, the implications are grim. “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,” said Andrew Terry, the director of conservation and policy at ZSL, in a press release. “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.” The report acknowledges that conservation efforts are working, but more action is needed. To curb even more loss of life, the 89 authors of this year’s report urge the world leaders attending this December’s UN Convention on Biological Diversity (Biodiversity COP15) to reach an ambitious agreement to protect wildlife. One important move, they say: Carbon emissions must be slashed to limit further global warming.
