Prelims: Current events of national and international importance | Environment
Why in news?
Africa’s monitored wildlife populations declined by an average of 80% between 1970 and 2022, highlighting the scale of biodiversity loss across the continent, according to a new report released by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF).
Key Findings
- Sharp decline – Africa's monitored wildlife populations declined by an average of 80% between 1970 and 2022, which is equivalent to 3.1% per year.
- The figure is an average change in population size, not a count of animals lost.
- Trends were negative across all major animal groups, with monitored freshwater fish among the most severely affected.
- However, WWF noted that information on freshwater ecosystems in Africa remains limited, underscoring the need for expanded research and targeted conservation.
- Causes of wildlife decline –
- Habitat loss, driven largely by agricultural expansion
- Overexploitation and climate change.
- Invasive species
- Pollution can directly damage ecosystems or indirectly reduce food availability and reproductive success.
- Disease, particularly due to climate change and habitat degradation, can make species more vulnerable to infections.
- Habitat loss, overexploitation and climate change together account for 67% of biodiversity loss across terrestrial, marine and freshwater ecosystems.
- Signs of recovery – Despite the alarming trends, WWF points to successful conservation efforts as evidence that wildlife decline is not inevitable.
- Community-based natural resource management – It gives local people rights and responsibilities over wildlife while allowing them to benefit from sustainable stewardship.
- These efforts, combined with anti-trafficking measures, judicial reforms and efforts to reduce corruption, have helped some elephant populations recover.
- Example – Southern African elephant populations are stable or increasing in several areas where local communities play a central role in managing wildlife and land.
- Challenges remain – However, WWF cautions that these gains remain fragile and can bring new challenges, including human-wildlife conflict and habitat degradation.
- Transforming sectors that drive biodiversity loss – The report argues that conservation alone cannot reverse the broader forces driving biodiversity loss.
- Three systems — energy, food and agriculture, and finance — are central to the crisis.
- Transforming these systems is therefore essential. In 2023, around $7.3 trillion flowed into activities harmful to nature, compared with only $220 billion for protecting and restoring it.
- Positive tipping points for transformation
- Positive tipping point – A stage at which beneficial change becomes self-sustaining and difficult to reverse.
- Energy sector – Solar power is now the cheapest source of new electricity generation in most countries.
- Food and agriculture sector – Growing focus towards nature-positive production, promoting sustainable trade and consumption, encouraging healthy and sustainable diets, and reducing food loss and waste.
- Finance system – Needs to work rapidly towards stopping the financing of harmful activities, valuing nature and climate as material risks, creating regulatory certainty and closing an annual $1.3 trillion biodiversity financing gap.
Reference
Down to Earth | WWF report on Africa
