Declining fish stocks
ACCORDING to the diagnosis of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, unless something is done, fish stocks in the Asia-Pacific region will run out by 2048.
Europe and Central Asia
• Soil erosion has affected 25% of agricultural land in the European Union, and 23% in Central Asia.
• Availability of clean drinking water has decreased by 15% per person since 1990.
• More than a quarter of marine fish species have declining populations.
• 42% of known terrestrial animal and plant species have declined in population size over the last decade.
Americas
• With 13% of the world’s population, the region accounts for about a quarter of the total impact on global biodiversity.
• Just under a quarter of species assessed are at risk of extinction.
• Species populations — already 31% smaller than when the first European settlers arrived — will have shrunk by about 40% by 2050.
Africa
• Climate change could result in the loss of more than half of Africa’s birds and mammals by 2100.
• About 500,000 square kilometers of soil has been degraded by forest destruction, unsustainable farming, erosion, illegal mining, climate change and invasive species.
• More than 60% of the continent’s rural population depends on Nature for their survival. About a quarter of sub-Saharan Africa’s 930 million inhabitants suffer for a lack of food.
• African elephant numbers dropped to 415,000 in 2016, down about 111,000 over 10 years.
Asia-Pacific
• Unless something is done, fish stocks will run out by 2048.
• Up to 90% of corals will be severely degraded by 2050 as a result of climate change.
• As much as 45% of biodiversity could be lost by 2050.
Globally
• Two species of vertebrates, animals with a backbone, have gone extinct every year, on average, for the past century.
• Scientists say Earth is undergoing a “mass extinction event,” the first since the dinosaurs disappeared about 65 million years ago, and only the sixth in the last half-billion years.
• About 41% of amphibian species and more than a quarter of mammals are threatened with extinction.
• The global populations of 3,706 monitored vertebrate species — fish, birds, mammals, amphibians, and reptiles — declined by nearly 60% from 1970 to 2012.
• 25,821 plant and animal species of 91,523 assessed for the 2017 “Red List” update were classified as “threatened.”
• Of these, 5,583 were “critically” endangered.
• There are an estimated 8.7 million plant and animal species on our planet. This means about 86% of land species and 91% of sea species remain undiscovered.