Humanity has wiped out 60% of wildlife since 1970
According to a report by the environmental protection organization WWF, the number of wild animals living worldwide has shrunk drastically in recent decades. Between 1970 and 2014, the number of vertebrates living in the wild declined by 60 percent due to human activities, according to the published WWF Living Planet Report 2018.
The number of wild animals living worldwide has shrunk drastically in recent decades, according to a report by the environmental protection organization WWF. Between 1970 and 2014, the number of vertebrates living in the wild declined by 60 percent due to human activities, according to the published WWF Living Planet Report 2018.
«The situation is really bad and it is getting worse,» said WWF Director Marco Lambertini. There can be no future for humanity if the Earth is stripped of its biological diversity.
The sixth mass extinction has begun
«We are sleepwalking towards the edge of a cliff,» said Mike Barrett, Executive Director of Science and Conservation at WWF. «If the human population were to decline by 60%, that would be equivalent to emptying North America, South America, Africa, Europe, China and Oceania.»
«Time is running out,» said Prof. Johan Rockström, a global expert on sustainability at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. «Only if we address ecosystems and climate do we have a chance of securing a stable planet for the future of humanity.»
Destruction of habitats as the main cause
The biggest reason for the loss of wildlife is the destruction of natural habitats, a large proportion of which is cleared to create farmland. Three quarters of all land on Earth is today heavily affected by human activities. Killing for food is the second most important cause — 300 mammal species are being eaten to extinction.
The worst-affected region is South and Central America, where the vertebrate population has declined by 89%. The most severely affected habitats are rivers and lakes, where wildlife populations have fallen by 83%.
Less meat as part of the solution
Eating less meat is an essential part of reversing these losses. “We can no longer ignore the impacts of current unsustainable production models and wasteful lifestyles,” said Lambertini.
“We are the first generation that knows we are destroying our planet and the last that can do something about it,” said Tanya Steele, CEO of WWF. More on Biodiversity.
More on the subject of recreational hunting: In our dossiers on recreational hunting gather fact-checks, analyses and background reports. What the research says about this is shown by Hunting fact-checked: the state of research.
The position of IG Wild beim Wild: IG Wild beim Wild rejects recreational hunting. Our model is the canton of Geneva, which has managed without recreational hunting since 1974: without hunting seasons, without hunting dogs, without driven hunts, without high seats, without the animal cruelty and crime that go hand in hand with hunting season elsewhere. What has worked there for over fifty years disproves every position paper by JagdSchweiz. An association that bases its policy on claims it refutes in its own documents is not a professional organisation, but a factory for misinformation.
