Living Planet Report 2020: Bending the Curve of Biodiversity Loss

by W.W.F.

At a time when the world is reeling from the deepest global disruption and health crisis of a lifetime, this year’s Living Planet Report provides unequivocal and alarming evidence that nature is unravelling and that our planet is flashing red warning signs of vital natural systems failure. The Living Planet Report 2020 clearly outlines how humanity’s increasing destruction of nature is having catastrophic impacts not only on wildlife populations but also on human health and all aspects of our lives.

This highlights that a deep cultural and systemic shift is urgently needed, one that so far our civilisation has failed to embrace: a transition to a society and economic system that values nature, stops taking it for granted and recognises that we depend on nature more than nature depends on us.

This is about rebalancing our relationship with the planet to preserve the Earth’s amazing diversity of life and enable a just, healthy and prosperous society – and ultimately to ensure our own survival.

Nature is declining globally at rates unprecedented in millions of years. The way we produce and consume food and energy, and the blatant disregard for the environment entrenched in our current economic model, has pushed the natural world to its limits. COVID-19 is a clear manifestation of our broken relationship with nature. It has highlighted the deep interconnection between nature, human health and well-being, and how unprecedented biodiversity loss threatens the health of both people and the planet.

It is time we answer nature’s SOS. Not just to secure the future of tigers, rhinos, whales, bees, trees and all the amazing diversity of life we love and have the moral duty to coexist with, but because ignoring it also puts the health, well-being and prosperity, indeed the future, of nearly 8 billion people at stake.

The Living Planet Report 2020 shows that there is an opportunity to heal our relationship with nature and mitigate risks of future pandemics but this better future starts with the decisions that governments, companies and people around the world take today. World leaders must take urgent action to protect and restore nature as the foundation for a healthy society and a thriving economy.

We still have a chance to put things right. It’s time for the world to agree a New Deal for Nature and People, committing to stop and reverse the loss of nature by the end of this decade and build a carbon-neutral and nature-positive economy and society. This is our best safeguard for human health and livelihoods in the long term, and to ensure a safe future for our children and children’s children.

Marco Lambertini,
Director General, WWF International

162 pages, ebook

First published May 1, 2012

About the author

World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) or World Wide Fund is an international non-governmental organization founded in 1961 whose mission is to conserve nature and reduce the most pressing threats to the diversity of life on Earth.

Reviews

[Diogenes Grief · Rating 5 out of 5]

The World Wildlife Fund (https://www.worldwildlife.org/) has been around since the early ‘60s, and they continue to be a powerful leader in science and conservation, doing the good, hard work of being heroes for Earth and Her ecosystems. “Our mission is to stop the degradation of the planet’s natural environment and build a future in which humans live in harmony with nature.” Well, they have a new annual report out, and it’s particularly grim (https://livingplanet.panda.org/en-us/). “What is now clear is that the social and economic consequences of environmental degradation are catastrophic, and safeguarding human health, wealth and security is intrinsically linked to safeguarding environmental health“ (p. 40). In the past 50 years, Gaia has lost 2/3 of Her wildlife, thanks to humanity. The klaxons are blaring—humankind’s relationship with Gaia is utterly broken, but those within and aligned to the WWF are not giving up: they want to bend the curve of biodiversity loss, and they have the technology to show us the way forward. This report is nicely thorough, breaking hard science and huge statistical analyses down to an easily understood level. The evidence is irrefutable, though of course some will try.

Now we need governments, corporations, and entire industries to get on board. That’s no small feat. Frontline recently illustrated the great scheme the plastics consortium sold to us (https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/fi...), and like most industries, they are doubling down on the lies, disinformation, and insatiable greed. As consumers, we each have the power to change how corporations behave through our choices, but it takes education and willpower to make those tough choices and inform others on how to make better choices themselves. As voting citizens, we have the power to motivate how our local, state, and national governments behave and act on this formidable meta-issue. It’s an uphill slog, no doubt, but the fight is worthy. One can say it’s the most important fight of humanity’s existence. Of course you have to think beyond your brief timeline here on Earth. We have to think about the generations to come. “Will 2020 go down in history as the year in which COVID-19 served as the catalyst to completely alter our future relationship with nature? Cutting-edge new modeling shows that with urgent action it is still possible to halt loss and reverse the trend of nature’s decline” (p. 59). The future depends upon what we do TODAY. The species of homo sapiens needs drastic behavior change, and it needs it now. Our relationship with Earth is irrevocably intertwined. If we continue to poison the planet, we are inevitably poisoning ourselves. I vow to continue doing what I can to help.

Having read this report, I hope you do too.

https://www.npr.org/2020/09/10/911500...

[Anna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Portrays a grim reality of the world. Graphics and illustrations are vivid. Language very simple so anyone familiar with ecology can understand easily. There are many take away home messages. I feel like I have yet to grasp hold of everything this book has to tell.