A scathing new report on global biodiversity outlines what it calls a “catastrophic decline” in wildlife populations ahead of a major international conference on biodiversity.
On Monday, October 21, the United Nations will hold a two-week conference in Cali, Colombia called COP16. On the agenda is climate change and life protection. But hanging on to this meeting is a new report by the World Wide Fund for Nature (formerly the World Wildlife Fund). The 2024 Living Planet Report details a “catastrophic 73% decline in average wildlife populations over just 50 years.”
These concerns are centered on points around the world – from the grasslands of the Serengeti to the urban forests of the San Francisco Bay Area. Creatures great and small are under threat.
“That means that in my lifetime, 50 years, we have reduced the average size of this animal population by 73%,” said Dr. Robin Freeman, global biodiversity expert with the Zoological Society of London.
Among the biggest threats are humans and a warming planet. Both lead to accelerating changes that make it impossible for species to adapt successfully.
“Species are often so tuned to local environments that they have acquired thousands to millions of years through co-evolution to create and make choices in their genomes about which features will survive,” said Stanford biology professor Dr. Elizabeth. Already. “When we change so quickly, we open up these relationships, extinction happens so quickly.”
Humans are encroaching on the critical habitats of many species and putting many ecosystems at risk, thus threatening the planet’s biodiversity. These impacts affect elephants in tropical forests, hawksbill turtles on the Great Barrier Reef, and even migratory birds that pass through the Gulf Region.
“Most of our native birds need a lot of biodiversity in plants and insects to survive,” explained Dr. Katie LaBarbera, senior biologist and science director for the Land Bird Program at the San Francisco Bay Area Bird Observatory, notes how around the world, some bird populations are declining.
In addition to birds, some fish are in trouble. According to a WWF report, in California, the number of winter Chinook salmon has decreased by 88% since 1970. Shasta Dam blocks access to historic spawning grounds, while climate change threatens the Sacramento River – an important migration route.
Chief Caleen Sisk, spiritual leader of the Winnemem Wintu Tribe, and tribal members are working with New Zealand Maori and federal fish biologists to return Chinook salmon to the McCloud River and find a way for them.
In the 19th century, millions of salmon eggs from the McCloud River were exported to 30 countries and 14 different countries to create new salmon. New Zealand was the only location where this new race thrived, and in 2005, MÄori invited Winnemem Wintu to bring wild salmon eggs back to McCloud.
“The water system here in California really depends on how we take care of the salmon,” Sisk said. “If the salmon live, people will survive. If we want to drain the river and change its name to a warm water river, people will also suffer.”
This Bay Area expert says protecting the planet’s wildlife is an important wake-up call that shouldn’t be ignored.
“Biodiversity cannot be reinvented,” Hadly said. “It’s what we rely on for food, for medicine, for our homes. It’s so important to humans.”
“The bits of nature around us are precious and we can’t save them if we don’t respect them,” LaBarbera added.
“We hope we can educate everyone about our salmon,” Sisk said. “They are not the only food that can be eaten. They dig down to the gravel and they let all the silt out to the sea and they let the river breathe into the underground water system.”
The hope with this upcoming conference is that countries will agree on new standards on how to restore nature and prevent decline.
