Recently, the release of the WWF Living Planet Index 2022 turned the spotlight back on the health of global biodiversity. Let’s take a look at the findings that emerged from the report and the most significant threats facing living species.
The Living Planet Index is an index developed by WWF that measures the relative abundance of vertebrate species around the planet. It is published every two years and offers a picture of the health of the global ecosystem. The 2022 report represents the largest archive of data obtained by the Living Planet Index.
The data revealed by the report are rather alarming: analyzing the changes in the population of mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles, and fish from 1970 to the present, a 69 percent decline in the relative abundance of the considered species was observed. Latin America shows the greatest decline on a regional scale in population abundance (94%), while populations of freshwater species have seen the greatest drop globally (83%).
To be fully understood, however, the report needs to be put into context. The Living Planet Index does not consider the total number of animals, i.e., absolute abundance, but the change in abundance; therefore, it does not indicate the total number of disappearing and extinct species. Moreover, the report is based on an analysis done by the Zoological Society of London that does not take into account invertebrate populations, which represent 97 percent of the species on the planet.
The decline of wildlife can be traced to many interlinked causes. Changes in land use pose the most significant threat to wildlife because they result in the destruction and fragmentation of the natural habitats of many plant and animal species. Other causes include overexploitation of plants and animals, invasive alien species, pollution, and threats from agriculture, hunting, poaching, and deforestation.
In recent years, the focus is shifting to climate change: if we fail to limit the rise of the global temperature, we will most likely face mass extinctions. Just to give an example, a 1.5°C increase in average temperatures would result in a loss of 70-90% of warm-water coral reefs, while a 2°C increase will lead to a loss of more than 99%.
An essential document for understanding the effects of climate change on wildlife species and ecosystems is the Sixth Report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), released in 2022. The document, resulting from the work of 270 scientists from 67 countries, highlights the immediate need for action to limit climate change:
“Recent analyses, drawing on a range of lines of evidence, suggest that maintaining the resilience of biodiversity and ecosystem services at a global scale depends on effective and equitable conservation of approximately 30% to 50% of Earth’s land, freshwater, and ocean areas, including currently near-natural ecosystems.” (Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability. Summary for Policymaker, IPCC, 2022)
One of the most comprehensive and recent reports is the State of the World’s Plants and Fungi 2020 published by the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew (the next update is due in 2023). According to the report, 2 out of 5 plant species are at risk of extinction; on the other hand, botanical discoveries in 2019 recorded 1,942 new plant species and 1,886 new fungi species.
“We cannot assess whether a species is at risk of extinction if we do not know it exists,” the scientists state. Therefore, locating, describing, and classifying new species is a crucial task. Humans exploit a very limited number of botanical species for their needs: 7,039 plants are considered edible, and only 417 of these are cultivated for food use. The same goes for medical purposes or for the production of new fuels: the potential is still vast and largely unexplored.
The report also addresses the use of plants for medicinal purposes and the need to find more sustainable approaches to obtain natural compounds for drugs. Of the 25,791 plant species documented for medicinal use, 5,411 have been included in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, the world’s most comprehensive information source on the global conservation status of animal, fungi, and plant species. Of these 5,411 species, as many as 723 (13 percent) are classified as threatened.
The protection of biodiversity is one of the pillars of our code of ethics. We believe that it is necessary to re-establish a rightful balance between humans and other living species, bound together by thin threads. For years we have been supporting various projects aimed at safeguarding biodiversity in agronomy. We collaborate with universities, research institutions, and small rural entities to protect plant and animal species.
Informing and acting are two sides of the same coin for EPO. Through research and communication, we aim to fuel the debate on sustainability issues, while we take concrete action with our projects. Sustainability should not remain photographed only in a handful of data but lead to immediate and tangible actions.