The final report will be handed to world leaders not just to help politicians, businesses, and the public become more aware of the trends shaping life on Earth, but also to show them how to better protect nature.
“High-level political attention on the environment has been focused largely on climate change because energy policy is central to economic growth. But biodiversity is just as important for the future of earth as climate change,” said Sir Robert Watson, overall chair of the study, in a telephone interview from Washington, D.C.
“We are at a crossroads. The historic and current degradation and destruction of nature undermine human well-being for current and countless future generations,” added the British-born atmospheric scientist who has led programs at NASA and was a science adviser in the Clinton administration. “Land degradation, biodiversity loss, and climate change are three different faces of the same central challenge: the increasingly dangerous impact of our choices on the health of our natural environment.”
Around the world, land is being deforested, cleared, and destroyed with catastrophic implications for wildlife and people. Forests are being felled across Malaysia, Indonesia, and West Africa to give the world the palm oil we need for snacks and cosmetics. Huge swaths of Brazilian rainforest are being cleared to make way for soy plantations and cattle farms, and to feed the timber industry, a situation likely to accelerate under new leader Jair Bolsonaro, a right-wing populist.
Read more at The Rapid Decline of the Natural World Is a Crisis Even Bigger Than Climate Change
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