In 1970, humans numbered 3.7 billion. Today, we’re more than double that–eight billion! During that short time, the number of animals that also share this planet dropped by 69 per cent!
This catastrophic decline is outlined in the World Wildlife Fund’s “2022 Living Planet Report,” which examines the state of Earth’ biological diversity based on mammal, bird, fish, reptile and amphibian population trends.
As environmentalist and author Bill McKibben writes on his site, “Over those five decades most of the decline can be traced to habitat destruction: the human desire for ever more stuff playing out daily, acre by acre, across the globe.” Human-caused climate disruption will soon become the main driver, the WWF report notes.
The UN Convention on Biological Diversity adopted the WWF’s Living Planet Index as “an indicator of progress towards its 2011-2020 targets” and for its “important role in monitoring progress towards the post-2020 goals and targets negotiated at COP15 this December.” That’s critical, because we still have time–although increasingly less–to turn
— source davidsuzuki.org | David Suzuki | Oct 30, 2022