According to the recent reports of WWF (World Wide Fund), the population of fish, birds, mammals, amphibians and reptiles chop down by 52% within 1970 to 2010, which believes to be far faster than ever thought.
On the other hand, the report of conservation group’s Living Planet, published every 2 years, stated that, the demands of human kinds are increased by 50%, which seems more than that the nature bears, trees felled, ground water pumped, CO2 emissions increased more than the Earth can bear (Reuters).
Ken Norris (Director of Science at the Zoological Society of London) stated, “This huge damage is not foreseeable, though the outcome of the way we choose to live.”
Moreover, the report stated that we can still cope with this situation if politicians and businesses took the right actions to save nature.
International Director of WWF, General Marco Lambertini stated, “It’s quite vital that we grab the opportunity in order to develop a sustainable future where people could live and prosper in harmony with nature.”
He further stated that we can’t preserve the nature by only protecting wild places, though it’s also about conservation of the humanity’s future, indeed, our only way to survive.
The major declines were in tropical regions, especially Latin America, report results on the populations of vertebrate wildlife discovered. WWF, which believes to be a “Living Planet Index”, is relying on the trends in 10,380 populations of 3,038 mammal, bird, reptile, and amphibian and fish species.
WWF told, the average 52% decline is much larger than the previously published reports, partially because these studies has based on more readily accessible information from Europe & North-America. According to the same report published 2 years back, stated the decline of 28% within 1970 to 2008.
Certainly, the worst decline was believed to be amongst the population of fresh water species, which is declined to 76% till 2010. On the other hand, marine and terrestrial decline is by 39%.
The report stated that, the major reason for the decline in populations happened due to the loss of natural habitats, exploitation due to hunting and fishing and most importantly due to climate change.
In order to measure the variation between the statistics of different countries experimental impact, the report gauged that how large an ‘ecological footprint’ each one had and how much productive land and water area, or “bio-capacity”, each country accounted for.
Furthermore the report revealed that Kuwaitis followed by Qatar and UAE had seems to be the largest ecological footprint so far, as they are consuming and wasting more resources as compared to any other nation.
The report stated, “ If everyone on this planet have the same footprint as of Kuwait & Qatar resident, then we probably need 4.8 planets and if we lived similar to an USA resident, then we need 3.9 planets.”
Some poorer countries such as India, Indonesia, and the Democratic Republic of Congo also had ecological footprint that seems fine with the planet’s ability to absorb their demands.