NEWS AND COMMENT: The World Wildlife Fund-UK’s Living Planet Report 2022 makes shocking reading. The headline is that humans have wiped out almost 70% of animal populations in about half a century. This is the equivalent of losing the combined total of all the people living in Europe, the Americas, Africa, Oceania and China.
Tanya Steele, the organisation’s chief executive said that the dire conclusions showed the mass destruction of nature and “For us, the biggest concern isn’t just the numbers. It’s the fact that there is absolutely no action. World leaders are missing in action“.
Yes, as a simple layperson reading about wildlife and nature over a dozen years, I agree that nothing is happening. In fact, you could argue that things are getting worse, and the destruction of wildlife is speeding up.
And one of the main reasons is illustrated by the Brazilian government’s attitude towards wildlife conservation. In Brazil there is even a steeper decline in wildlife numbers with Latin America suffering the biggest fall with species down 94%. Biodiverse hotspots such as the Amazon jungle are being bulldozed to destruction to make way for vast plantations to grow products such as palm oil, bananas, pineapple, tea and coffee and sugarcane plus cattle ranches. The soil cannot sustain crops for long and therefore the farmers cut down more forest.
The main driver for deforestation in the Amazon jungle is cattle ranching and soy production. Essentially, economic growth which is what Liz Truss is chasing in the UK in a most haphazard way, leads to the destruction of nature. It is an entirely natural progression from one to the other. And there is a blinkered demand for continual economic growth by all the governments of the world it seems to me. Therefore, technology has to step in to find ways to meet economic growth targets while preserving the natural habitat.
Where much of the habitat has been destroyed already, the falls in wildlife numbers are lower. That’s a logical conclusion. For example, wildlife numbers were down 20% in North America and 18% in Europe over the period reported on, namely 1970 to 2018.
Almost 1,400 freshwater species such as mammals, fish, amphibians have been hit harder than animals on land as the numbers have declined by 83% on average.
In December there is a UN biodiversity summit in Canada. Almost 200 countries will attend to agree new targets to halt this decline. It is hard to be optimistic because none of the targets set for 2020 were met. I’m personally pessimistic because world leaders are asleep at the wheel concerning conservation.
Tanya Steele said that leaders are betraying the next generation and bold decisions and actions need to be taken.
Liz Truss, the UK’s Prime Minister of about a month, is focused on economic growth and she is prepared to sacrifice wildlife conservation to meet that objective. She has made this clear and she is a danger to animals as I stated in a previous post. She is yet to state that she will attend the conference. To be honest, in my opinion, she is so useless she would probably embarrass the UK if she did.
The UK government has been criticised for a perceived attack on nature with, for example, the Prime Minister’s desire to create hundreds of investment zones free of regulations to protect nature.
“The UK is one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world” according to Tanya Steele and millions of birds have been lost in Britain over this period. Liz Truss is blind to this.
There is a negative spin-off from this horrible news which is that it threatens action on climate change. The two are linked obviously because if you destroy the habitat of wildlife such as forests you promote global warming.
The WWF administrators believe that global warming is happening as the evidence is clear and it is “driven by the unsustainable use of our planet’s resources”. The protection of wildlife and efforts to stop global warming need to be addressed simultaneously and together.
Tanya Steele further stated that:
“Across the world, and in the UK, nature is on its knees and our leaders are risking catastrophic consequences for people, planet and our economy by failing to act. We are hurtling towards a hotter planet were nature – and without it, our food, our homes and livelihoods – will be unable to survive without urgent action now to save our planet.
