Building a nature positive community: A priority as we bend the nature loss curve

The Living Planet Report (LPR) is the world’s leading, science-based analysis on the health of our planet and the impact of human activity.

Originally published annu­ally from 1998 to 2000, the LPR has been published by WWF every two years since then. It is based on the Living Planet Index (LPI) and eco­logical footprint calculations that measure and assess the state of nature and the drivers of biodiversity loss.

The LPR also presents solu­tions and recommendations, and inspires actions to tackle the complex challenges posed in the report. It aims to sup­port governments, communi­ties, businesses and organisa­tions to make informed deci­sions on valuing, sustainably using and protecting nature and the planet’s resources.

In its most comprehen­sive finding to date, this edi­tion shows an average 69% decline in the relative abun­dance of monitored wildlife populations around the world between 1970 and 2018. Freshwater species popula­tions have seen the greatest overall global decline at 83%.

Today, as we launch the 14th edition of the LPR, we face the double, interlinked emer­gencies of human-induced climate change and the loss of biodiversity, threatening the well-being of current and future generations. As our future is critically dependent on biodiversity and a stable climate, it is essential that we understand how nature’s decline and climate change are connected.

Code red for the planet (and humanity)

The message is clear and the lights are flashing red. Our most comprehensive report ever on the state of global ver­tebrate wildlife populations presents terrifying figures: a shocking two-thirds decline in the global Living Planet Index less than 50 years.

And this comes at a time when we are finally beginning to understand the deepening impacts of the interlinked cli­mate and nature crises, and the fundamental role biodi­versity plays in maintaining the health, productivity and stability of the many natu­ral systems we and all life on Earth depend on.

The COVID-19 pandemic and other zoonotic diseases that humanity is facing right now have given many of us a new awareness of our vul­nerability. This is beginning to challenge the unthinking assumption that we can con­tinue to dominate the natural world irresponsibly, taking nature for granted, exploiting its resources wastefully and unsustainably, and distribut­ing them unevenly without facing any consequences.

Today, we know that there are consequences. Some of them are already here: the loss of lives and economic assets from extreme weather; aggravated poverty and food insecurity from droughts and floods; social unrest and increased migration flows; and zoonotic diseases that bring the whole world to its knees.

Nature loss is now rarely perceived as a purely mor­al or ecological issue, with a broadened sense of its vital importance to our economy, social stability, individual well-being and health, and as a matter of justice.

The most vulnerable pop­ulations are already the most affected by environmental damage, and we are leaving a terrible legacy to our chil­dren and future generations to come. We need a global plan for nature, as we have for climate.

A global goal for nature: nature positive

We know what’s happen­ing, we know the risks and we know the solutions. What we urgently need now is a plan that unites the world in deal­ing with this existential chal­lenge. A plan that is agreed globally and implemented locally.

A plan that clearly sets a measurable and time-bound global goal for nature as the 2016 Paris accord, with the net-zero emissions goal by 2050, did for climate. But what can be the ‘net-zero emissions’ equivalent for bio­diversity?

Achieving net-zero loss for nature is certainly not enough; we need a nature- or net-positive goal to restore nature and not simply halt its loss. Firstly, because we have lost and continue to lose so much nature at such a speed that we need this higher ambition.

And, secondly, because nature has shown us that it can bounce back – and quickly if given a chance. We have many local examples of nature and wildlife come­backs; forests, black rhinos, the African elephants, marine species, just to mention a few.

We need nature positive by 2030 – which, in simple terms, means more nature by the end of this decade than at its start.

More natural forests, more fish in the ocean and river sys­tems, more pollinators in our farmlands, more biodiversity worldwide. A nature-positive future will bring countless benefits to human and eco­nomic well-being, including to our climate, food and water security.

Together, the complemen­tary goals of net-zero emis­sions by 2050 and net-posi­tive biodiversity by 2030 rep­resent the compass to guide us towards a safe future for humanity, to shift to a sus­tainable development model, to support the delivery of the 2030 Sustainable Develop­ment Goals.

Unmissable opportunity

WWF’s Director General Marco Lambertini concludes;

“For me, for WWF, and for many other organizations and a growing number of country and business leaders agreeing on a nature-posi­tive global goal is crucial and urgent.”

“World leaders have an unmissable opportunity in December 2022 to embrace a nature-positive mission at the long-awaited 15th confer­ence of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (COP15) in Montreal, Canada, under the presidency of China.”

“This is key to ensuring the right level of ambition and measurability in the goals and targets of the agreement. It is key to mobilizing and align­ing governments, commu­nities, businesses, financial institutions and even con­sumers towards contributing to the same shared global goal, inspiring a whole-of-so­ciety approach. And it is key to injecting the same high degree of accountability that we are beginning to witness around climate action.”

“Our society is at the most important fork in its histo­ry, and is facing its deepest systems change challenge around what is perhaps the most existential of all our relationships: the one with nature.”

“And all this at a time when we are beginning to understand that we depend on nature much more than nature depends on us. The COP15 biodiversity confer­ence can be the moment when the world comes together on nature”.

We hope this inspires you to be part of that change. Read more at www.panda. Org