Mass Extinction
Pandemics
Living Planet Report 2016
WWF publishes an annual ‘Living Planet Report’ - latest 2016. The findings are alarming:
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From 1970 to 2012 the ‘Living PLanet Index’(WWF) shows a 58 per cent overall decline in vertebrate population abundance.
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Terrestrial populations have declined by 38%
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Freshwater populations by 81% !!!
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Marine populations by 36%
The loss of biodiversity is just one of the warning signs of a planet in peril. The Ecological Footprint – which measures our use of goods and services generated by nature – indicates that we’re consuming as if we had 1.6 Earths at our disposal. In addition, research suggests that we’ve already crossed four of nine “Planetary Boundaries” – safe thresholds for critical Earth system processes that maintain life on the planet.
WWF observes that the size and scale of the ‘human enterprise’ have grown expoentially since the mid 20th century while we have only one planet and its ‘natural capital’ is limited - and then optimistically thinks that a shared understanding of the ‘link between humanity and nature could induce a profound change that will allow all life to thrive in the anthropecene.
While it is most valueable that WWF brings the observations of environmental decline forward, the recommendations remain naïvely optimistic. Talking about ‘the human enterprise’ instead of capitalism and of nature as ‘capital’ illustrates the mental lock-in.
However, in between there are signs of deeper understanding, as this: We need to transition to an approach that decouples human and economic development from environmental degradation—perhaps the deepest cultural and behavioural shifts ever experienced by any civilization.
And this: Ultimately, addressing social inequality and environmental degradation will require a global paradigm shift toward living within Planetary Boundaries. We must create a new economic system that enhances and supports the natural capital upon which it relies.
That’s not bad: We must create a NEW ECONOMIC SYSTEM - as deterioration continues may be even WWF some day will come to the conclusion that Capitalism has to be removed to obtain a ‘living planet’
- nature cannot continue to be ‘Capital’.
Biodiversity Diet
Agriculture is the leading driver of biodiversity loss. 30% of species richness and 31% of species abundances are potentially lost because of agricultural expansion across the Amazon and Afrotropics. Transforming large swaths of the tropics into farmland could render almost one-third of wildlife there extinct. Many high-risk regions are not adequately covered by conservation prioritization schemes, and have low national conservation spending and high agricultural growth.
Although climate change casts a shadow over future conservation efforts, farming is the No. 1 threat to wildlife. We have already altered some 75 per cent of the ice-free land on this planet. Sub-Saharan Africa is particularly at risk of harmful agricultural development.
Small-holder agro-ecological farming, which uses diverse cropping techniques along with fewer chemical fertilizers and pesticides, can produce large quantities of nutritious food at little to no cost to wildlife. We need to increase awareness of agro-ecological farming methods and secure local people’s land-holder rights — a crucial step to preventing large foreign corporations from buying up land for monoculture farming.
Communities adopting agro-ecological techniques is a win-win solution that goes a long way towards sustainably feeding the world without pushing wildlife towards extinction.
Since most agricultural demand comes from richer nations, those countries should provide education and support for sustainable farming methods and locally led conservation efforts.
All of this raises the question: How can we eat well without harming wildlife? One simple step we can all take right now that would have a far greater impact than any other (aside from having fewer children): Cut out the grain-fed beef.
The inefficiency of feeding livestock grain to turn them into meals for humans makes a diet heavy in animals particularly harsh on the Earth’s resources. For example, in the United States, it takes 25 kilograms of grain to produce one kilogram of beef. Pigs have a grain-to-meat-ratio of 9:1, and chickens are 3:1.
Imagine throwing away 25 plates of perfectly good food to get one plate of beef — the idea is absurd! There are ways in which farmers can raise livestock with little to no environmental damage, particularly when land is not overgrazed and trees remain on the landscape. Indeed, in some remote areas grazing cattle are a crucial source of food and nourishment. Unfortunately, the industrialized feedlot model that relies heavily on grain makes up the overwhelming majority of the meat in your supermarket.
To make matters worse, the grain we feed animals is the leading driver of deforestation in the tropics. And it’s a hungry beast: our cows, pigs, and poultry devour over one-third of all crops we grow.
Livestock quietly causes 10 times more deforestation than the palm oil industry.
For wildlife’s sake, go forth and enjoy your veggie burgers.
Insect Abundance Alarm
Three-quarters of flying insects in nature reserves across Germany have vanished in 25 years.
The destruction of wild areas and widespread use of pesticides are the most likely factors and climate change may play a role.
Insects make up about two-thirds of all life on Earth. “We appear to be making vast tracts of land inhospitable to most forms of life, and are currently on course for ecological Armageddon. If we lose the insects then everything is going to collapse.” (Prof Dave Goulson, Sussex University)
The annual average fell by 76% over the 27 year period, but the fall was even higher – 82% – in summer, when insect numbers reach their peak.
Previous reports of insect declines have been limited to particular insects, such European grassland butterflies, which have fallen by 50% in recent decades. But the new research captured all flying insects, including wasps and flies which are rarely studied, making it a much stronger indicator of decline.
The fact that the samples were taken in protected areas makes the findings even more worrying, said Caspar Hallmann at Radboud University, also part of the research team: “All these areas are protected and most of them are well-managed nature reserves. Yet, this dramatic decline has occurred.”
Goulson said a likely explanation could be that the flying insects perish when they leave the nature reserves. “Farmland has very little to offer for any wild creature,” he said. “But exactly what is causing their death is open to debate. It could be simply that there is no food for them or it could be, more specifically, exposure to chemical pesticides, or a combination of the two.”
Regulators around the world have falsely assumed that it is safe to use pesticides at industrial scales across landscapes and that the effects of dosing whole landscapes with chemicals have been largely ignored.
Another way of sampling insects – car windscreens – has often been anecdotally used to suggest a major decline, with people remembering many more bugs squashed on their windscreens in the past.
“I think that is real,” said Goulson. “I drove right across France and back this summer – just when you’d expect your windscreen to be splattered all over – and I literally never had to stop to clean the windscreen.”