The world is undergoing a biodiversity extinction crisis which represents an existential threat to our very survival.
Nature is declining globally faster than any other time in human history with 1 million species now threatened with extinction. Natural ecosystems have declined by 47% on average and the global biomass of wild mammals has declined by at least 82% since the 1960s.
In Canada we have not been immune to biodiversity loss. Seventy percent of our prairie wetlands and 80% of our Carolinian forests are gone. More than 80% of wetlands in and around urban areas, critical buffers to reduce flooding of our homes, have been destroyed. Since 1970 at least 42% of our mammal populations have disappeared and there are 2.9 billion fewer breeding birds in North America. Twenty-five percent of Canada’s native bumble bees, critical pollinators for many of our most common food crops, are declining.
Populations of grassland birds, like the eastern loggerhead shrike, have declined by 57% since 1970 (photo by Philip Rathner).
We can only push biodiversity loss so far. The author and conservationist Gerald Durrell once said “The world is as delicate and as complicated as a spider’s web. If you touch one thread you send shudders running through all the other threads. We are not just touching the web we are tearing great holes in it”. We don’t know where the tipping points are that will lead to ecosystems unraveling and affecting our own health, wellbeing, and survival as we currently know it.
The swift fox disappeared from Canada’s grasslands in the 1930s but was successfully reintroduced to Canada by WPC and partners, and can now be seen in southern Alberta and Saskatchewan (photo by Gordon Court).
In the midst of this crisis, a new scientific paper recently published in the journal Science has provided reason for hope. The authors of the paper examined 186 studies around the world that measured the success of conservation efforts over time compared to the expected results if no conservation action had been taken. They found that in two-thirds of cases, conservation either improved the state of or slowed declines in biodiversity. They also found that more recent conservation programs were more likely to be successful suggesting that we are getting better and better at understanding what is needed to help species at-risk. A main takeaway from the study was that conservation works but will “require substantially scaled-up funding and commitment for implementation of demonstrably effective conservation interventions…which in turn depends on increased political will and investment.” Another study from 2020 that was referenced by the authors found that a comprehensive global conservation program would cost between $178 billion and $524 billion per year. The world’s GDP in 2020 was US$85 trillion while $121 billion (0.1%) of that number on average has been spent by governments on biodiversity conservation per year. While these numbers are difficult for me to wrap my head around the takeaway is that even increasing to the equivalent of $524 billion per year would still only be 0.6% of global GDP. That seems like a small price to pay for our own species’ health, wellbeing, and survival – let alone that of the millions of other species we share the planet with.
Conservation action works. It is not too late. We just need to do a lot more.
