Whether you live in a city, a rural area or by the ocean, it’s likely you have noticed a decline in biodiversity. Maybe fewer birds visit your urban feeders, larger mammals are less common in the fields and forests around you, or your catches on those fishing trips are getting smaller.
What we’re all witnessing is a potentially catastrophic loss of biodiversity on which entire ecosystems depend.
Global efforts to protect nature
In an ongoing effort to slow the destruction of nature, delegates at the 2022 United Nations Biodiversity Conference in Montreal, Canada, focused on reversing the rapid decline of animals, plants and insects. The conference, also known as COP15, worked towards a new global agreement to protect biodiversity.
In a strongly worded opening address, UN Secretary-General António Guterres told delegates that “humanity has become a weapon of mass extinction”. Guterres piled further pressure on attendees by describing the conference as “our chance to stop this orgy of destruction”.
The destruction to which Gueterres refers spans the globe and is happening on a massive scale. According to a UN Global Land Outlook assessment, more than 1 million species are now threatened with extinction, vanishing at a rate not seen in 10 million years. As much as 40% of Earth’s land surfaces are considered degraded.
Research by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature found that human activity for food production, infrastructure, energy and mining accounts for 79% of the impact on threatened species.
This article was originally published by hellenicshippingnews.
