The global wildlife population has fallen by almost a third since the early 1970s, a latest data on biodiversity shows.
The WWF Living Planet Index (LPI)—which tracks the fortunes of hundreds of species of birds, mammals, insects and fishes—found that populations were down by an average of 27 %. Pollution, farming, urban expansion, over-fishing and hunting are blamed for the decline in the wildlife population.
The LPI follows trends in nearly 4,000 populations of 1,477 vertebrate species and is said to reflect the impact humans have on the planet.
Experts, however, say the data may still underestimate the effect humans have had on global species counts.
“The governments have signally failed to deliver on their biodiversity commitments, and biodiversity declines are continuing,” Jonathan Loh, a researcher at the institute of zoology and the editor of the report, was quoted as saying by the New Scientist on Friday
The LPI is based on a wide range of population datasets, such as commercial data on fish stocks and projects such as the Pan-European Common Bird Monitoring scheme.
Fresh figures indicate that between 1970 and 2005, the global LPI has fallen by 27%, suggesting that the world will fail to meet the target of reducing the rate of biodiversity loss set by the 2002 convention on biological diversity.
The results were released as part of a WWF report entitled 2010 and Beyond: Rising to the biodiversity challenge. The report was published ahead of a worldwide meet on biodiversity, the ninth meeting of the conference of the parties on 19-30 May that will assess what has been achieved by the convention on biological diversity. According to the Living Planet Index, ground-living vertebrates have declined by 25%, with most of the slump occurring since 1980. Marine species held fairly steady until the late 1990s before falling sharply to give an overall drop of 28%. Freshwater species have decreased by 25 %, primarily since the late 1980s.
Loh said the most dramatic declines have been observed in the tropics. Tropical ground-living species have seen an average population drop of 46%, while their temperate cousins have shown no overall change.
He stressed freshwater vertebrates show different trends in different regions, leading to “no obvious signal”.
European and North American populations show no overall change, but Asian-Pacific populations have declined steeply since the late 1980s. “Birds are doing better than fishes,” he pointed out, “so if anything, by biasing the survey towards them we are underestimating...
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