Even for a conservation biologist numbed to bad news about nature, the biennial Living Planet report from the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) is a stark reminder of our failure to arrest the loss of biodiversity – the variety of living things and the ecosystems they live in.
The 2024 report uses an index that has tracked the fate of 35,000 populations of 5,495 species of wild vertebrates – that’s animals with a spinal column, so mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish – from 1970 to the present day. Over the past 50 years (1970–2020), the average size of these monitored wildlife populations has shrunk by 73%.
Freshwater populations (think fish, frogs and salamanders) are doing much worse, declining by 85%. Marine populations are faring slightly better, with declines of 56%. However, given emerging threats to the ocean ranging from microplastic accumulation to deep-sea mining, it is best not to regard these figures as absolute guides to conservation priorities.
