Most Beautiful Pictures Of Our Planet

Every day, new evidence of our unsustainable impact on the environment is emerging. A destabilized climate generates more frequent and deadly extreme weather. The last five years have been the warmest five-year period on record, while the Arctic warmed much faster than predicted and the UN estimates that, in the last 10 years, climate-related disasters have caused one trillion of damage worldwide.

In just over 30 to 40 years, the world has witnessed 60% decline in wildlife populations across land, sea and freshwater and is heading towards a shocking fall of two-thirds by almost 2020. This has happened in less than two generations.

Forests are under pressure like never before.

Our oceans are under great stress. We dump plastic and toxic chemicals into the sea, poisoning our own food. We catch fish wastefully and unsustainable, with 85% of the world’s fish stocks over fished. We’ve lost 60% of the world’s coral reefs in the last 30 years. In a generation, the world has lost nearly half of its marine species populations.

Why does this matter?

It matters because we can’t have a prosperous future on a depleted planet, and all signs are pointing to human activity driving the Earth to the edge.

Biodiversity the complex web of life made by millions of species, plants, bacteria and fungi – underpins the natural systems that we take for granted; systems that provide us with the air we breathe, the food we eat and the water we drink. It maintains the ecosystems that society needs to thrive, ensuring access to essential raw materials, commodities and services. The unprecedented loss of biodiversity we are seeing today is an existential threat to human life and economic development. If the biodiversity index were considered akin to the stock market, our planet would be heading for a spectacular crash.

There’s also an economic value to biodiversity loss.