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Living Planet 2024 report: species populations are in freefall!

The latest edition of the Living Planet Report, produced by the WWF on a global and regional scale, measures average trends in the population size of more than 5,000 vertebrate species.

The 2024 edition reveals the scale of the extinction crisis. Between 1970 and 2020, the average population size of wild species fell by an average of 73%. This figure is based on nearly 35,000 demographic trends for 5,495 species of amphibians, birds, fish, mammals and reptiles. Regionally, the greatest losses were recorded in Latin America (-95%). Freshwater species showed the greatest decline, with a worrying decline of 85%.

The regional index for Europe and Central Asia shows a relatively low rate of decline of 35% between 1970 and 2020, reflecting the fact that in many regions nature was already in an impoverished state before 1970. Successful reintroductions of species such as the European bison and the Dalmatian pelican have boosted the index, but freshwater fish, reptiles and amphibians are mostly in decline.

The options for solving the crisis of nature’s decline are known, but require bold and far-reaching measures. Restoring nature will require unprecedented conservation efforts, as well as an urgent transformation of our food, energy and financial systems.