In News: Nature NGO WWF has published the latest edition of its Living Planet Report.
The last edition, published two years ago, revealed that the population sizes of animals (excluding insects) had decreased by an average of 68% between 1970 and 2020.
About Living Planet Report:
The Living Planet Report 2022 is a comprehensive study of trends in global biodiversity and the health of the planet.
It is an annual flagship World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) publication.
It is the world’s leading, science-based analysis, on the health of our planet and the impact of human activity.
It links climate change and biodiversity loss for 1st time. Biodiversity loss and climate crisis should be dealt with as a single issue.
Findings:
WWF identified six key threats to biodiversity — agriculture, hunting, logging, pollution, invasive species and climate change — to highlight ‘threat hotspots’ for terrestrial vertebrates.
Wildlife populations of mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles and fish across the globe decline by 69% in the last 50 years.
Latin America and the Caribbean region recorded the highest decline i.e. 94 per cent.
Africa recorded a 66 per cent fall in its wildlife populations from 1970-2018
Asia Pacific recorded a decline of 55 per cent.
Freshwater species populations globally reduced by 83 per cent.
The vertebrate wildlife populations are plummeting at a particularly staggering rate in tropical regions of the world.
Habitat loss and barriers to migration routes were responsible for about half of the threats to monitored migratory fish species.
Mangroves are lost to aquaculture, agriculture and coastal development at a rate of 0.13 per cent per year.
Many mangroves are also degraded by overexploitation and pollution, alongside natural stressors such as storms and coastal erosion.
India Findings:
Around 137 square kilometres of the Sundarbans mangrove forest in India and Bangladesh has been eroded since 1985, reducing land and ecosystem services for many of the 10 million people who live there.
Climate change in India will impact key areas, such as water resources, agriculture, natural ecosystems, health and the food chain
