WWF reports half of Earth's wildlife destroyed in past 40 years

The Living Planet report concludes that today’s average global rate of consumption would need 1.5 planet Earths to sustain it. 

The number of wild animals on Earth has halved in the past 40 years, according to a new analysis. Species across land, rivers and the seas are being decimated as humans kill them for food in unsustainable numbers, while polluting or destroying their habitats, the research by scientists at WWF and the Zoological Society of London found.

While conservation efforts in rich nations have seen small improvements overall, the biggest declines in animal numbers have been seen in low-income, developing nations.

 “We have lost one half of the animal population and knowing this is driven by human consumption, this is clearly a call to arms and we must act now,” said Mike Barratt, director of science and policy at WWF. He said more of the Earth must be protected from development and deforestation, while food and energy had to be produced sustainably.

Currently, the global population is cutting down trees faster than they regrow, catching fish faster than the oceans can restock, pumping water from rivers and aquifers faster than rainfall can replenish them and emitting more climate-warming carbon dioxide than oceans and forests can absorb, according to the Living Planet report, which calculates humanity’s “ecological footprint”- the scale at which it is using up natural resources. .

The report concludes that today’s average global rate of consumption would need 1.5 planet Earths to sustain it. 

The fastest decline among the animal populations was registered n freshwater ecosystems, where numbers have plummeted by 75% since 1970. “Rivers are the bottom of the system,” said Dave Tickner, WWF’s chief freshwater adviser. “Whatever happens on the land, it all ends up in the rivers.” For example, he said, tens of billions of tonnes of effluent are dumped in the Ganges in India every year.

As well as pollution, dams and the increasing abstraction of water are damaging freshwater ecosystems. There are more than 45,000 major dams around the world.  While population has risen fourfold in the last century, water use has gone up sevenfold.

By importing food and other goods produced via habitat destruction in developing nations, rich nations are “outsourcing” wildlife decline to those countries, said Professor Ken Norris, ZSL’s director of science. For example, a third of all the products of deforestation such as timber, beef and soya were exported to the EU between 1990 and 2008.