Living Planet Report 2024: Download & Key Findings

1. There has been a catastrophic 73% decline in the average size of monitored wildlife populations over just 50 years (1970-2020).

2. The steepest declines in monitored wildlife populations are recorded in Latin America and the Caribbean (-95%), Africa (-76%), Asia–Pacific (-60%) and in freshwater ecosystems (-85%).

3. Habitat loss and degradation, driven primarily by our food system, is the most reported threat to wildlife populations around the world, followed by overexploitation, invasive species and disease.

4. Declines in wildlife populations can act as an early warning indicator of increasing extinction risk and the potential loss of healthy ecosystems. When ecosystems are damaged they can become more vulnerable to tipping points - being pushed beyond a critical threshold resulting in substantial and potentially irreversible negative change.

Unless we change course, we risk passing tipping points of global significance which pose grave threats to humanity and most species. They include the decline of the Amazon, coral reef die-offs, the melting of Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets and the collapse of Atlantic ocean currents.

5. We have global agreements and solutions to set nature on the path to recovery by 2030, but so far there’s been little progress on delivery and a lack of urgency.

6. We need action that meets the scale of the challenge. This means more, and more effective, conservation efforts, while also systematically addressing the major drivers of nature loss. That will require nothing less than a transformation of our food, energy and finance systems.

7. WWF is calling for countries to produce and implement more ambitious national nature and climate plans that include measures to reduce global overconsumption, halt both domestic and imported biodiversity loss and cut emissions, all in an equitable manner.

We also urge governments to unlock greater public and private funding to allow action at scale; and to better align their climate, nature and sustainable development policies and actions. Both governments and businesses should act to rapidly eliminate activities with negative impacts on biodiversity and climate, and redirect finance away from harmful practices and towards activities that will deliver on the global goals.