A new report by the WWF revealed distressing findings on the human impact on biodiversity. In the course of only 40 years we have lost up to 60% of global wildlife populations because of human activity. The report urges the global community to come together and rethink our consumption patterns in order to reverse the mass loss of species.
Measuring biodiversity is difficult since around 86% of terrestrial and around 91% of marine species have yet to be discovered. Several studies have, however, attempted to measure the loss of known species on a global, regional and local scale. Globally, species extinction rates are expected to continue throughout the 21st century at a rate dependent on human intervention and the development of climate change, whereas the situation might be reversed on smaller scales. On a local scale, biodiversity might increase because of invasive species and the changing climatic circumstances bringing warmer temperatures and increased precipitation to certain regions.
Despite the uncertainty as to what extent we are losing species and if we, in fact, already have passed irreversible thresholds, big changes have been observed in biomes around the world. According to several studies, including the new WWF report, the mass loss of species is mainly caused by overexploitation and agriculture.
As previous posts have revealed, animal agriculture does play a significant role in both global land use as well as in the rate of deforestation which inevitably affects species that rely on certain habitats. Climate change is often thought to be the leading cause of species extinction when, in fact, overexploitation and agricultural activity seem to be the underlying causes. According to a study on the dominant drivers of biodiversity loss, more than 4500 species are affected by crop farming, whereas over 2000 species are affected by livestock farming – both linked to animal agriculture. Furthermore, agricultural processes tend to take place in fertile areas where biodiversity is already considerably higher than in other areas around the world. Thus, the number of affected species might actually be higher than expected.
However, as mentioned earlier, in some local regions biodiversity might benefit from grazing livestock and crop production, and since organisms are rarely affected by only one outside threat, several underlying factors might play a role in determining how biodiversity is altered. Climate change will most likely play an increasingly important role in the spatial distribution of species as well as the overall loss of biodiversity.
Climate change is an increasing threat to life on earth that worsens with the amount of human-induced greenhouse gas emissions. The livestock industry itself does account for a proportion of the emissions, but by how much?
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