The wildlife population has been divided by 2 in 40 years – The Tribune.fr

The wildlife population has been divided by 2 in 40 years – The Tribune.fr

The NGO WWF (World Wildlife Fund) has issued a damning report in its latest report “Living Planet” published Monday, September 29. The action of the man would have led to the loss in 40 years, more than half the population of vertebrate species.

Between 1970 and 2010, according to the Living Planet Index, which measures the changes in populations of 10,380 3,038 mammal species, the number of birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish dropped by 52%.

The Latin America, the most affected area

The freshwater species have paid full price (-76%) while the terrestrial and marine species fell by 39%, same for populations of terrestrial wild animals.

Two areas are particularly affected: Latin America (-83%) and Asia-Pacific (-67%). The reported drop of 52% is much greater than in previous reports. This is due to the change in the method of calculation. The new method provides a more accurate representation of the global distribution of vertebrate species, according to the NGO.

In its latest biennial report, dating from 2012, the WWF reported a 28% drop wildlife between 1970 and 2008 The index then covered only 2,699 species.

Loss

and habitat degradation

According to the NGO, the causes of this decline are loss and habitat degradation (involved: agriculture, urbanization, deforestation, …), hunting and overfishing, and climate change

Among the prominent examples is the city. African elephants. The distribution of the elephant forest no longer represented in 1984 approximately 7% of its historical range. And in this bare minimum, due to poaching, elephant numbers plummeted by 60% between 2002 and 2011.

Overconsumption of man

According to NGOs, humanity consumes more natural resources than the planet can replenish, more fish than it is born, more CO2 as forests and oceans can absorb. Thus, the “biocapacity” or the area available to provide these goods and services, continues to contract with the explosion of the world population, according to the NGO.

“This trend heavy shows no signs of slowing down “ says the 10th edition of the report. But the NGO does not sink into pessimism: “It is still possible to take action to reverse this decline and combine development and environmental protection.”