How we continued destroying the natural world in 2020

Nature is in a calamitous free fall but some conservation efforts paid off this year. Here’s how everyone can do their bit, writes Jane Dalton

Fewer than 400 Sumatran tigers are estimated to remain in the world (AFP/Getty)

The tiger made a horrible, deathly sound as it lost its fight for life, hit by the bullet that Mem Mai fired. He fed the animal’s meat to his family and gave some to neighbours. After that, Mai’s taste for shooting escalated, leading him to kill and sell more wildlife in and around his home in Cambodia and Laos.

That was nearly 30 years ago, but today Mai is a passionate conservationist, with a profound love for nature, and works for BirdLife International.

“I somehow realised that if we did not change, soon all the wildlife would be hunted to extinction and my children would never be able to see the same wonderful things in nature as I have,” he says. “Wild animals are not so different from human beings so why should we kill them?”  

The reasons behind Mai’s transformation from killer to conservationist highlights the fears of environmentalists over wildlife populations – described, alarmingly, as “in freefall” by WWF this year over concerns there will be none left for future generations to love.

Numbers of wild tigers globally, including those in Cambodia, have plummeted by at least 96 per cent, leaving them perilously close to being wiped out.

They are just one victim of the sixth mass extinction that experts now say is under way, driven mostly by human activities that are causing the climate crisis and habitat destruction.  

Perhaps the sorriest symbol of the change was the world’s last male northern white rhino, which died in 2018 in Kenya. Only two northern whites remain in the world, both female – and the last of the species.

In May last year, the world’s foremost scientists painted a devastating picture of biodiversity loss, with up to a million species facing extinction.

A recent report by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) highlighted how nature was “at death’s door” on a planet ravaged by rampant overconsumption and drowning in pollution.

This year, news of species declines has continued arriving at a distressing pace. Take two of the world’s most treasured but very different species, for example – the polar bear and the African elephant.

In the summer, a study in Nature predicted that all but a few Arctic polar bear populations would disappear within 80 years if greenhouse gas emissions did not change. “Moderate emissions mitigation prolongs persistence but is unlikely to prevent some subpopulation extirpations [extinctions] within this century,” the stark study warned.

And the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), a global authority on wildlife conservation, reported survival rates of polar bears in Canada were declining and the animals were thinner.

African elephants, whose populations have dropped by a calamitous 96 per cent over the past century – from about 12 million to 400,000 – are still being targeted mercilessly by poachers across much of Africa. With conservationists estimating that around 20,000 African elephants are killed each year for their ivory, it doesn’t take much to work out that the species is seriously imperilled.

There had been recent reports that killings had started to fall, but a study this summer highlighted how the reported declines were only in east Africa, and that poaching levels had mostly remained the same in southern, western and central areas of the continent.

“In western Africa, most savannah elephant populations are small and isolated, meaning that these populations could be at risk of extirpation,” the researchers wrote in Nature.

I somehow realised that if we did not change, soon all the wildlife would be hunted to extinction and my children would never be able to see the same wonderful things in nature as I have

Yet there are other species whose plight is considered even more urgent. Sixteen of the world’s favourite species, ranging from the amur leopard and black rhino to the Sumatran orangutan and the western lowland gorilla, are on WWF’s list of species that are critically endangered – just one step away from being extinct in the wild.

The bigger picture, according to WWF’s annual Living Planet Report in early September, is of populations of mammals, birds, fish, amphibians and reptiles “in freefall” thanks to human activity. 

Total numbers have collapsed by an extraordinary 68 per cent on average globally since 1970 – more than two-thirds in less than 50 years – it revealed. One of the world’s most comprehensive examinations of biodiversity on our planet, the report warned of a “desperate” state. “Nature is being destroyed by humans at a rate never seen before, and this catastrophic decline is showing no signs of slowing,” WWF said, blaming intensive agriculture, deforestation and the conversion of wild spaces into farmland for the destruction, while overfishing “wreaks havoc with marine life”.

One of the most worrying threats is to bumblebees, the world’s most important pollinator of plants including our food. At the beginning of the year, scientists found they were disappearing at rates consistent with a mass extinction, and were on course to be wiped out in just a few decades. The research by Canadian scientists found in just a single human generation, the likelihood of a bumblebee population surviving in a given place had dropped by more than 30 per cent, with the human-made climate crisis largely to blame.

A wholesale evaluation of the future threats to all life on Earth was given earlier this month by the IUCN in its latest red list inventory, which identified more than 35,700 plant and animal species – almost 30 per cent – as threatened with extinction. They include all the world’s freshwater dolphins and 40 per cent of amphibians.

The findings seem to confirm a dire prediction made in February – that in just 50 years’ time, a third of all plant and animal species could be wiped out by the climate emergency. Scientists at the University of Arizona found 44 per cent of the 538 species they studied had already gone extinct at one or more of the sites they had inhabited. 

Then in June, research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences showed the extinction rate among terrestrial vertebrate species was significantly higher than earlier estimates, warning the critical window for preventing mass losses was only 10 to 15 years.

In the UK, the first official Red List for British Mammals warned in the summer that a quarter of native populations were at “imminent risk of extinction”. The list, from the Mammal Society, revealed that 11 of the 47 mammals native to Britain were on the brink of extinction, including the water vole, hedgehog, wildcat and the grey long-eared bat. A further five were classified as “near threatened”.

Given all the worldwide evidence, it should have come as no surprise when in September the UN revealed the world had mostly failed to meet targets agreed 10 years ago intended to prevent more species from vanishing and to safeguard ecosystems. UN chief Antonio Guterres declared: “Humanity is waging war on nature, we need to change our relationship with it.”

30%

of the world’s animal and plant species are now threatened with extinction

Guterres appeared to understand that losing species is about more than just losing creatures that look cute – it means killing the very ecosystems on which we depend. Up to half of all medicines come from plants and animals, and the world’s oceans and forests – nurtured by their inhabitants – absorb more than half of greenhouse gas emissions.

Most focus is on the climate crisis and habitat loss, but trophy-hunting also plays a role in wiping out many popular species, research has shown, by targeting males with the biggest antlers, horns and tusks – those with high-quality genes.

According to Eduardo Goncalves, author of Killing Game: The Extinction Industry, there is a “very real risk” that trophy-hunting could make the lion the first big cat to become extinct since the sabre-tooth tiger vanished in prehistoric times. Lion populations have plummeted by 95 per cent in 70 years. And Goncalves warns that with lion gene pools shrinking – in no small part because of “canned” hunting – killing just 5 per cent of remaining adult males risks pushing the big cat past the point of no return.

Cheetahs, too, he says, are in big trouble, with fewer than 7,000 left. He accuses hunt organisers of killing them because they predate on gazelles, antelopes and impala that are sold to trophy-hunters for shooting. “Killing 100 cheetahs a day is the equivalent in human terms of shooting dead the entire population of every EU capital city, every major city in Britain, New York, Rio, Tokyo, Beijing et al combined,” he tells The Independent.

Haley Stewart, wildlife protection manager at the Humane Society US, says: “In the US, trophy hunting is the main threat to mountain lions and black bears, as well as mesocarnivores like bobcats. As many as 50,000 black bears are trophy hunted every year across America, and the UK is implicated because we still allow trophy imports of many of these species.”

When it comes to halting the biodiversity crisis, world leaders haven’t exactly acted at cheetah speed. It’s been more than 18 months since the world’s top scientists warned that up to a million species were at risk of being wiped out, and pleaded with governments to declare an ecological emergency.

In May, German researchers proposed creating a target for extinctions, suggesting countries should aim to keep extinctions to “well below” 20 species every year. It would be the biodiversity equivalent of the 2C climate target: a simple, measurable goal.

Finally, just three months ago, the heads of 64 countries at a UN biodiversity summit signed a pledge to reverse biodiversity loss within 10 years.

“We have no time to wait. Biodiversity loss, nature loss, it is at an unprecedented level in the history of mankind,” said Elizabeth Mrema, the executive secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity. “We’re the most dangerous species in global history.”

The biggest driver behind the loss of nature is change in land and sea use, the IPBES said, and the UN pledge would mean doubling the amount of land protected by 2030. With biodiversity loss inextricably intertwined with the climate crisis, it’s a tall order. Meanwhile, another international meeting next year of nearly 200 countries at COP15 of the convention will mean yet another treaty.

But despite the gloomy outlook, some imaginative initiatives are under way, and there have been some conservation success stories this year.

Killing 100 cheetahs a day is the equivalent in human terms of shooting dead the entire population of every EU capital city, every major city in Britain, New York, Rio, Tokyo, Beijing et al combined

Sir David Attenborough launched a campaign asking the world to invest $500bn (£368bn) each year, saying: “We still have an opportunity to reverse catastrophic biodiversity loss, but time is running out.” Backed by more than 130 organisations, the campaign aims to redirect money away from fossil fuels and polluters into locally led conservation.

Other wildlife experts celebrated good news this year for the world’s most trafficked species – the pangolin, pushed to the brink of extinction by hunting for its scales and meat. China raised the animal’s protection to the highest level and removed it from the official list of traditional Chinese medicine treatments.  

Last month, the critically endangered blue whale was spotted once again off South Georgia, 50 years after whaling all but wiped them out.

And in Africa, the Ethiopian Wolf Conservation Programme, supported by UK charity Born Free, celebrated a baby boom among the species that is Africa’s most threatened carnivore, with reports of 48 puppies being born.

The number of lions in Kenya has increased by about 25 per cent in a decade to 2,489, according to Born Free. And India’s tiger population rose to 2,367, up from only 1,800 50 years ago.

In the UK, an eastern black rhino – critically endangered thanks to futile demand for their horns for traditional Asian medicine – was born in a breeding programme at Chester Zoo.  

Several projects reintroducing wild animals to Britain’s countryside are also under way, together with rewilding projects. Bison are being reintroduced in Kent, beavers are back in the Forest of Dean, white-tailed eagles are thriving on the Isle of Wight and pine martens are making a return to England and Wales. Three East Anglian farmers plan to bring bison, beavers, pelicans and even lynx to an area of land more than one-and-a-half times the size of London during the next 50 years.  

It might not be obvious that most people can help stop extinctions – but consumer power plays a significant role.

Since land use change is considered the principal cause of nature loss, as jungles are cleared and urban areas grow, many experts say the world needs to drastically shrink the amount of meat produced. Swathes of South American forests are razed to grow soya, production of which has soared, mostly to feed livestock. Cows, pigs, chickens and other animals reared for meat worldwide account for an estimated 90 per cent, Greenpeace says, of destructive soya production.  

In his book Dead Zone, on how factory farming drives extinctions, Philip Lymbery writes: “Feeding soya to farm animals means they are taken off the land and, in the process of turning soya to meat, waste most of the available energy and protein in conversion. Putting whole landscapes to the plough for the burgeoning trade in animal feed seems deeply questionable, particularly when that land could be used much more efficiently growing food directly for people.”

Investigators have previously found that beef linked to illegal Amazon deforestation is sold in supermarkets. Attenborough and other prominent scientists have all called for people to eat less meat and dairy. Excessive animal product consumption accounts for 60 per cent of biodiversity loss, WWF has said, with the UK food industry alone directly linked to the extinction of an estimated 33 species. This year, the IPBES even suggested taxing meat consumption and production. Helping prevent deforestation also includes avoiding buying:

• cars that use leather from land razed for cattle ranching;
• pets from endangered species such as reptiles and handbags and shoes made of their skins;
• palm oil and timber from regions where forests are razed. A recent study found cattle, soya, palm oil and timber were responsible for 80 per cent of deforestation globally.

Coffee drinkers should buy “shade-grown” coffee, which keeps forest habitats intact.

Primatologist Jane Goodall this month condemned the way humans are “using up nature’s resources in this ridiculous – I would almost say stupid – way”, adding: “If we carry on with business as usual, if we carry on exploiting the natural world in the way that we have been and still are doing, then that will lead to the extermination of all life on Earth, including ours. At least life as we know it.” 

The Independent’s Stop the Illegal Wildlife Trade campaign, launched this year, seeks an international effort to halt the illegal wildlife trade, which frequently occurs in some of the world’s richest biodiversity hotspots. 

We are working with conservation charity Space for Giants to protect wildlife at risk from poachers due to the conservation funding crisis caused by Covid-19. Help is desperately needed to support wildlife rangers, local communities and law enforcement personnel to prevent wildlife crime