Two generations of humans have killed off more than half the world's wildlife populations, [View all]

Human activity has annihilated wildlife on a scale unseen beyond mass extinction, and it has helped put humans on a potentially irreversible path toward a hot, chaotic planet stripped clean of the natural resources that enrich it, a new report has concluded.

Populations of mammals, birds, fish, reptiles and amphibians have declined by 60 percent since 1970, according to a report released Monday by the advocacy group World Wildlife Fund. The animals that remain will fight against warming oceans choked with plastic, toppled rain forests may zero out fragile species, and refuges such as coral reefs may nearly die off.

That will transform life as humanity knows it, said Carter Roberts, the chief executive of the WWF in the United States, if societies do not reverse course to protect the food, water and shelter needed for survival.

“The numbers are astonishingly bad,” Roberts told The Washington Post. “It’s death by a thousand cuts.”

The Living Planet Report, released every two years, is a biopsy of sorts for wildlife and the numerous threats to it. The group points to overexploitation of the environment — activity such as mining and deforestation — unsustainable agriculture and climate change as some of the engines driving the death of species worldwide.


https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2018/10/30/two-generations-humans-have-killed-off-more-than-half-worlds-wildlife-report-finds/?utm_term=.ef98696d61ee