Recently, The World Wide Fund for nature (WWF) in collaboration with the Zoological Society of London released the ‘Living Planet Report 2020,’ which was the combined efforts of 120 experts who analyzed and studied over 20,000 communities of roughly 4,000 species.
The report uncovered the horrifying losses in biodiversity around the world. According to it, over 68% of wildlife has been lost since 1970. This is an average across all habitats, with the worst cases being wetlands which have lost 84% of wildlife and the Latin Americas which lost almost 94% of its wildlife. The primary reasons for the loss of wildlife, according to the report are:
- Changes in Land and Sea use, Habitat loss and Degradation
- Species overexploitation
- Invasive species and disease
- Pollution
- Climate change
- Additionally (this is not included in the report as it does not affect wildlife on a larger scale), increasing intolerance of animals has also played a role in degradation of biodiversity
At Ensciencopedia, a post on each of these reasons will be published soon. Stay tuned to find out more about biodiversity loss and threats to wildlife.
Image Credit: By Julia Hawkins – https://www.flickr.com/photos/8716204@N06/45872719122/, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=74617061