The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) has just revealed, this Thursday, September 10, its Living Planet Report 2020 and the results are once again overwhelming.
"The Covid-19 pandemic must be the wake-up call: let's change our relationship with living things and demand from decision-makers a real protection of biodiversity now.", warns Arnaud Gauffier, Director of programs for WWF France, can we read in a press release from the organization.
In a report from the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), based on the Living Planet Index, calculated by the Zoological Society of London from scientific data collected on 21,000 populations of more than 4,000 vertebrate species, pushes an alert signal.
According to data, between 1970 and 2016, 68% of this wild fauna (mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles and fish) disappeared. There is a real acceleration of the problem, in fact, the rate (already high) was 60% during the last report in 2018, over the period 1970/2014.
It is time to respond to the SOS launched by nature. To ignore it is to jeopardize the future of nearly 8 billion people.
For Véronique Andrieux, Director General of WWF France, " it is urgent and imperative to mobilize to preserve and restore ecosystems and to guarantee a sustainable future for all. One watchword: act now and up to the stakes!"
"It is time to respond to nature's SOS. To ignore it is to put the future of nearly 8 billion people at risk," adds Marco Lambertini, WWF World Director, on their website.
How to explain the degradation of nature?
WWF points to the explosion in world trade, consumption, as well as the strong growth of the human population and the gigantic movement of urbanization. Thus, again according to the information noted, "agricultural production accounts for 80% of global deforestation, 70% of freshwater use and 70% of the loss of terrestrial biodiversity." Habitat destruction (due to industrial agriculture) is the first direct cause of biodiversity loss, but climate change could take the first place, "leading to the disappearance of at least 20% of terrestrial species by 2100."
The decline is even more visible in freshwater, wetlands, lakes or rivers, with 84%.
The report explains that this loss of biodiversity is not just an environmental problem, but it is also a problem of "development, economy, global security, ethics and morals."
Reversing these declines
WWF gives concrete ideas to try to reverse this planetary tragedy:
– "Obtain a real New Deal for Man and Nature at the next conference of the parties to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) with the objectives for 2030."
– "Massively redirect development aid towards projects beneficial to biodiversity and the fight against climate change and supervise private finance players to eliminate harmful investments."
The solutions go through reducing meat consumption, combating food waste and agroecological transition.
Regarding a European strategy, it is necessary to "develop and implement European regulations prohibiting the importation of products that have contributed to deforestation, the destruction of natural ecosystems and the violation of human rights." And on the side of France, "to implement the National Strategy to Combat Imported Deforestation, to engage French agriculture in the agro-ecological transition thanks to an ambitious variation of the Common Agricultural Policy to reorient our farms towards a model that no longer depends on imported soybeans, effectively fight against the artificialization of soils ".
"The solutions go through the reduction of meat consumption, the fight against food waste and agroecological transition.", Comments Arnaud Gauffier in the report.