Humans Have Wiped Out 60% Of Vertebrate Wildlife Since 1970, WWF Reports

Folks, I’ve got good and bad news. The good news is that your nagging sensation that we have irrevocably fucked up the planet is completely correct. The bad news is that your nagging sensation that we have irrevocably fucked up the planet is completely correct. The WWF Living Planet Report for 2018 is here and it paints an incredibly grim picture of the impact we have had on this formerly green earth.

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Released every two years, Living Planet Report is an update on the state of the planet’s natural environment, covering biodiversity, ecosystems, demand on natural resources, and the impact those are having on both people and wildlife. Although it could probably most concisely summarised just by saying ‘We’re fucked.’, the biggest takeaway from this report is that the WWF has measured a 60% reduction in vertebrate wildlife between 1970 and 2014. If that fact alone doesn’t make you want to cry, we’ve also lost half of the planet’s shallow water coral in the last 30 years, and a full fifth of the Amazon in the last 50.

That 60% figure is taken from the Living Planet Index, an average of some 16,700 populations of mammals, birds, fish, reptiles and amphibians distributed globally. While some geographical areas saw a smaller decline, the Indo-Pacific region (which includes Australia, India, and New Zealand) saw a 64% reduction. The Neotropical region, which covers South America and Central America, has seen the worst of it, with the WWF measuring a staggering 89% reduction in wildlife populations between 1970 and 2014.

WWF chief executive Tanya Steele did not mince words about where we’re at: “We are the first generation to know we are destroying our planet and the last one that can do anything about it. The collapse of global wildlife populations is a warning sign that nature is dying. But instead of putting the world on life support, we’re using a sticking plaster.

We are fucked.

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