Hot off the press: The 2016 Living Planet Report

Today marked the release of the latest Living Planet report by the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) and the World Wildlife Federation (WWF), a leading publication setting out the current state of biodiversity. To be honest, I was a little surprised this morning when I had to navigate to the ‘science’ section of the BBC website – I had expected it to be front page news but then again, it was the Bake-off final last night.

The headlines I did find paint a largely negative picture and sum up a the report’s findings with the major theme as loss – it’s a damning and shocking report spelling out in no uncertain terms that species are continuing to disappear at a rapid rate and its results only extend the trend from the 2014 edition that I mentioned in the first post on this blog of major species decline. The trend, however, has worsened – now stating a decrease in species abundance of 58% between 1970 and 2012, increased this time in great part due to a more informed consideration of freshwater species. The big statistic that most outlets have grabbed hold of is a predicted loss in species populations of 67% by 2020 (measured against the levels of 1970). Considering that one of the thresholds for a mass extinction is the loss of 75% of species (Barnosky et al, 2011) it appears that the 6^th mass extinction event could be with us faster than expected.  

The Guardian's headline today

Something that becomes clear from the start of reading is that this edition is structured around two of the big conservation buzz words of the moment – ‘Anthropocene’ and ‘Resilience’, with the Anthropocene as the ‘defining concept’ in this year’s report. For me, it seems that the Anthropocene has become one of the ‘defining concepts’ of my degree as well – over the course of the last two years or so I feel like I’ve witnessed a change from being introduced to it as a proposed term starting to gain traction in the academic world, to being included as a key term in an international publication such as this one which cites the ideas of Crutzen and Stoermer (2000) and Steffen at al. (2007 and 2015) as key starting points for their report. The focus on the Anthropocene is the report taking the stance that the human race has triggered this biodiversity crisis. 

If ‘Anthropocene’ is the bad news, then ‘Resilience’ seems to be the good – it’s portrayed by the report as the way in which we can halt the negative trajectories and become more sustainable for the benefit of our societies, the environment and wildlife, the goal being a ‘transformation’ to a resilient planet. Contrary to laying out the loss of species to simply shock people, the report seems to be taking the approach of "well here's the science, now let's act on it". According to the WWF, being resilient involves three goals that will result from ‘better choices’ – biodiversity conservation, ecosystem integrity and food, water and energy security; the report combines these in a way which intrinsically links the future of the human species with that of the biosphere, echoing the planetary boundaries concept. The message from this is clear – becoming resilient to the socio-economic effects of food, water and energy insecurity requires a more environmentalist approach; to solve our problems we must also solve the ones that we have placed upon the environment. 

What I take from this report is yet another move towards the agreement that human activity is responsible for the biodiversity crisis, and a message that urgent action needs to be taken to enforce a shift to a more sustainable planet. Whether this will help towards halting biodiversity loss, however, is another thing.