Every two years since 1998, the Living Planet Report has been published to measure the state of biodiversity on the planet. The verdict of the latest edition is unequivocal: there are five years to put the world on a sustainable trajectory before the degradation of nature and the climate lead to irreversible tipping points.
Nature's decline continues
For the past five years (1970-2020), the average size of followed-up wild animal population has decreased by 73% as revealed by the Living Planet Index (LPI).
The populations of the freshwater specie show a great decline with a drop by 85% followed by land specie populations (69%) and marine specie populations (56%). At the regional level, the most rapid declines were observed in Latin America and in the Caribbean — with an alarming decrease of 95%— followed by Africa (76%), and Asia and the Pacific (60 %).
The reason why declines have been more spectacular in Europe and Central Asia (35%) and North America (39%) is simply because large-scale impacts on nature were already visible before 1970 in these regions and that some populations sensitised and even developed themselves thanks to conservation efforts and to species reintroduction.
The number of iconic species everywhere around the world which are all precious and indispensable to the stability of our ecosystems are plummeting.
The average size of followed up wildlife populations between 1970 and 2020 has decreased by 73%.
Meanwhile, when the population of a certain specie decreases to a certain limit, the latter could be unable to play its usual role in the ecosystem, be it to contribute in seed spreading, to pollination, to flock, to nutriment recycling or other numerous processes which insures the operationalisation of ecosystems. A decline in populations as shown by the global LPI, weakens the resilience and threatens exosystemic operationalisation. The benefits of ecosystems to humans are then jeopardised.
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