Over-development and intensive farming mean the natural world faces the unprecedented threat of a million plant and animal species becoming extinct, many within decades, according to the most comprehensive report ever undertaken of the state of the world’s nature.
Consequently future generations will face severe food and drink shortages and problems related to global warming unless urgent action is taken to tackle the loss of plants, insects, fish and other species people rely on for food, pollination, clean water and a stable climate.
The WWF said the report painted a “terrifying picture of a broken world” and showed that humans were “destroying” their own home.
Professor Sandra Diaz, one of the lead researchers of the UN report at Córdoba National University in Argentina, said: “Nature’s contributions to people are humanity’s most important life-supporting safety net. But our safety net is stretched almost to breaking point.”
Sir Robert Watson, chairman of the UN’s Intergovernmental Science Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, who produced the report, added: “We are eroding the very foundations of our economies, livelihoods, food security, health and quality of life worldwide.”
“Nature’s contributions to people are humanity’s most important life-supporting safety net,”
What the report finds
The 1,800 page report finds that the population of the average native land-based species has declined by at least a fifth in most major habitats across the world since 1900 as climate change, urban development, air and plastic pollution and intensive farming have hit plants and animals almost everywhere.
About 10 per cent of the world’s insect species and more than a third of its marine mammals are threatened with extinction, as a result of ocean warming and pollution, while at least 680 vertebrate species have disappeared from the planet since the 16th Century, according to the report, written by more than 500 researchers from 50 countries.
Furthermore, the record rate of species decline will continue unless world leaders take urgent action to combat climate change, pollution and land use – something they hope the report will spur them into.
Web of life is fraying
“The essential web of life on Earth is getting smaller and increasingly frayed. This loss is a direct result of human activity and constitutes a direct threat to human wellbeing in all regions of the world,” added another lead author, Professor Settele, of the Helmholtz-Centre for Environmental Research in Leipzig.
The amount of the world classed as urban has more than doubled since 1992, while three quarters of its land and two thirds of its oceans have been “significantly altered” by human actions, the report finds.
More than a third of the world’s land surface and nearly 75 per cent of freshwater resources are now devoted to crop or livestock production.
“The report tells us that it is not too late to make a difference,”
Sir Robert Watson
Although the situation is stark there is still time to act to avoid the worst consequences – but it will require an immediate and fundamental to the way people do business at every level of society, the UN researchers conclude.
“The report tells us that it is not too late to make a difference, but only if we start now at every level from local to global… But we need a fundamental, system-wide reorganisation across the technological, economic and social factors, including paradigms, goals and values,” said Sir Robert Watson.
Campaigners said the report highlighted the need to take drastic action right away to save the planet.
Greenpeace UK’s executive director John Sauven said: “The world’s leading scientists have once again hit the emergency button over the state of our planet. It’s time political and corporate leaders stopped making empty promises and started acting to prevent us sliding towards another mass extinction of life on earth.
“The UK government urgently needs to play its part by restoring our peatlands, planting millions of trees, providing ocean sanctuaries around our coast and supporting a shift from meat and dairy to healthy, plant-based meals,” he added.
Professor Richard Bardgett, President of the British Ecological Society, added: “The report lays out the scale and magnitude of the crisis we are facing. The weight of evidence of species and habitat loss, the breadth of expertise, and the number of countries agreeing the text makes the IPBES assessment impossible to ignore.”
The UK species in most danger:
The small blue butterfly
Bees and hoverflies
The red squirrel
The grey long-eared bat
Mark Wright, Director of Science, at WWF said: “The 1,800 pages of evidence released today by the world’s foremost experts in wildlife and the natural world paint a terrifying picture of a broken world. It shows we are chopping down our forests, overfishing our seas and melting the Arctic – and driving the other life we share this planet with to extinction at an unprecedented rate.
“In short, we are destroying our own home.
“Last week, MPs approved a motion to declare an environment and climate emergency. This report shows we have no time to waste in turning those words into action. We are the first generation to truly understand what we are doing to our world and the last who can do anything about it.”