Human activities could cause global biodiversityto decline even further, with forecasts it will drop by 67 percent by 2020, the World Wildlife Fund revealed on Thursday.
According to its latest report, Living Planet Report 2016, global fish, bird, mammal, amphibian and reptile populations have already declined by 58 percent between 1970 and 2012.
It's forecast to decline up to two-thirds in 2020, said Li Lin, WWF China's executive director of Program, on Thursday.
"Wildlife is disappearing within our lifetimes at an unprecedented rate," said Marco Lambertini, Director General of WWF International.
"This is not just about the wonderful species we all love; biodiversity forms the foundation of healthy forests, rivers and oceans. Take away species, and these ecosystems will collapse along with the clean air, water, food and climate services that they provide us. We have the tools to fix this problem and we need to start using them now if we are serious about preserving a living planet for our own survival and prosperity," he said.
The top threats to species identified in the report are directly linked to human activities, including habitat loss, degradation and overexploitation of wildlife, the report found.
"Human behaviour continues to drive the decline of wildlife populations globally, with particular impact in freshwater habitats. Importantly however, these are declines, they are not yet extinctions – and this should be a wake-up call to marshal efforts to promote the recovery of these populations," said Professor Ken Norris, Director of Science at Zoological Society of London, according to the statement from WWF.
