68% global biodiversity wipedOut in 5 decades, says WWF

Asia Pacific saw second biggest drop

The planet lost 68% of its biodiversity population in the past five decades.The brunt of it was borne by freshwater species, whose population went down by a stag gering 84%. And even with in-creased conservation efforts,an improvement seems unlikely before 2050, said the latest bi-annual Living Planet Report' released by the World WVide Fund for Nature (WWF).The situation in India is not much different from the global situation, something we need to be cognizant of," said Sejal Worah, programme director of the organisation's India unit at a pre-release briefing on Wednesday "In India,over 12% wild mammals and 3% bird species face the threat of extinction, while 19% amphibians are threatened or critically endangered." The Living Planet Index mapped 21,000 populations of mammals, birds, fish, reptiles and amphibians. The patterns show wide regional variance The Asia Pacific saw a 45% drop in biodiversity the second biggest after Latin America and the Carribean, which lost 94%. Singled out as a particular cause of concern are freshwater species.Almost one in three are threatened with extinction," the report said. In the Indian context, Worah said, the situation is dire. "By 2030, water demand will be twicethe availabi-lity with 14 of 20river basins already stressed. We are in a very critical situation," she added. One-third of India's wetlands have already been lost in the past four decades.What it shows up are the cascading effects of human acti-

vity in ways that are not always

understood until much later. A

cyclone in one continent can le-

ad toalocust swarm in another,

for instance. In 2018, climate

change led to two cyclones with

unusually heavy rainfall in the

southern Arabian peninsula.

It created a breeding ground

for locusts, which then invaded

parts of South Asia (including

India) and East Africa in 2019.

The same year, "an exceptio

nally hotand long heatwave led

to extreme droughts in India

and Pakistan, forcing tens

of thousands to abandon their

homes and causing an as-yet

unknown death to," the re

port said

This broken relationship

with nature came to a head in

2020. "A series of catastrophic

events-wildfires, locust plagu-

es and the Covid-19 pandemic-

have shaken the world's envi

ronmental conscience," the re

port said

The ecological footprint of

human populations has excee

ded the planet's regenerative

capacity-biodiversity is be

ing destroyed faster than it can

recover"The human enterpri

se currently demands 156 ti

mes more resources than the

amount that the earth can rege

nerate" the reportsaid. India's

footprint is among the lowest

- less than 16 global hectares

perperson, smaller than that of

many large countries. Howe

ver, the report added, "its high

population levels make it likely

for the country to face a wide

ning ecological deficit even if

current per-capita levels of re

source consumption remain

the same."