Nature Crisis

“If we don’t take action, the collapse of our civilisations and the extinction of much of the natural world is on the horizon.”

Sir David Attenborough, November 2018

In May last year, the UK parliament became the first to declare a Climate and Ecological Emergency. While public awareness of the climate crisis has certainly increased, there is perhaps less awareness on the no-less-critical,
concurrent ecological emergency. A recent report shows that the Sixth Mass Extinction is happening right now and accelerating, with more than 500 species of land animals found to be on the brink of extinction.

Last year’s report from the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) showed that the ecological crisis is on a par with the threat posed by climate change. Huge, human-caused, losses to biodiversity (the variety and variability of life on Earth) are being caused by changing habitat, exploitation (eg over-fishing, hunting and logging), invasive alien species, soil, air and water pollution and climate change.

During the last 50 years, the World Wildlife Fund estimate that wildlife populations have fallen by over 50% and the 2016 State of Nature report declared the UK to be “amongst the most nature-depleted countries in the world”, with one in five British mammals at risk of being lost. A report released in July this year now estimates that this has risen to one in four British mammals at ‘imminent risk of extinction’.

Insect numbers have also fallen drastically, as have the number of birds.

This level of loss of wildlife and diversity is devastating in itself. It could also potentially have a catastrophic effect on the food chain on which humanity depends.

But there is much that can be done to try and reverse the decline: rewilding areas to bring nature back to life; changing agricultural practices to reduce pesticide use and increase landscape diversity; reducing light, water and noise pollution – all these can also be beneficial on a small scale, and boost human health and wellbeing too.