Living Planet Report raises loudest alarm call yet for urgent action to restore nature

Today’s Living Planet Report delivers the stark message that global vertebrate populations have plummeted by an average of 73% in 50 years. While these losses are catastrophic and bring us close to the brink of ecosystem collapse, the report offers hope that nature can recover if given a chance.?

Bridget Emmett , President of the British Ecological Society, said the findings from the Living Planet Report raise the loudest alarm call yet for urgent and collective action to make space for and restore the natural world.?

Bridget added that “As government officials around the world prepare to gather for COP16 in under two weeks, we can only hope that this alarm will provoke an immediate and effective response. Ecological thinking must be embedded into political thinking at every level, recognising that nature can no longer be seen as a ‘nice to have’ but essential for our future.?

?What is the Living Planet Report??

The Living Report is published be-annually by WWF and is informed by Zoological Society of London (ZSL) 's Living Planet Index.

“The Living Planet Index is an indicator of biodiversity based on monitored populations of vertebrate species from terrestrial and aquatic habitats around the world.” explained Louise McRae , Research Associate at Zoological Society of London, an author of the report and BES member.

?“Calculated from 5,945 species and 34,836 populations, the results of the index reflect the most comprehensive database yet and highlight the value of primary monitoring data for tracking trends in biodiversity”?

Conservationists use the report and index, to understand the state of the natural world and guide conservation action. Because it’s so comprehensive, the Living Planet Index acts as an early warning system of extinction risks, ecosystem function loss and how close we are to irreversible tipping points.?

What can be done??

The declines in wildlife populations shown in the report are harrowing. But we have the solutions. We have the knowledge and ability to protect and restore our precious ecosystems and reverse declines in wildlife populations for the benefit of the planet and people.?

Bridget said: “We know that effectively protecting areas of land and sea allow nature to bounce back, that altering our intensive approach to agriculture can allow nature to thrive in our farmlands, and that through nature-based solutions we can even harness diverse natural systems to increase our resilience to threats like climate change, even in our cities.”?

Louise added that “Although the results are sobering, there are opportunities for nature to recover and my hope is for decisive action to be assured by Parties and industry at COP16 in Colombia so that protection for nature can be implemented at the scale required to reverse these trends.”?

More monitoring is needed

To protect the natural world, we need to effectively monitor both its decline and the efforts being made to spark its recovery.

The report is a testament to the tireless work of ecologists, those on the ground collecting this vital data all over the world and those involved in producing the Living Planet Index who spend over a year compiling and analysing the data into the report we read today.?

While the report is comprehensive, it is far from complete. It only covers monitored species, and of those only vertebrates, so the statistics are really just the tip of the iceberg.?

Louise said: “We do still have gaps in our knowledge and need to broaden the geographic, taxonomic, environmental and language coverage of species monitoring data.??

Bridget concluded that “To protect the natural world, we need to effectively monitor both its decline and the efforts being made to spark its recovery. This ultimately means funding and empowering ecologists who do the vital work behind these landmark reports.”?

Read the report?