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COP15 - 2022 Montreal Biodiversity Conference

COP15: 2022 MONTREAL: UN calls for biodiversity 'peace pact with nature'

Deforestation, Panama
Nature faces a series of unprecedented threats in the 21st century

 

"Humanity has become a weapon of mass extinction," the head of the United Nations has warned at the start of a high-level nature summit in Canada.

Governments are meeting in Montreal to agree targets to reverse the loss of nature.

Global Deforestation Summary - 2022

Deforestation: Which countries are still cutting down trees?

Logs from the Amazon

World leaders have pledged to end and reverse deforestation by 2030.

But in Brazil's Amazon rainforest it has hit its highest level in over 15 years - and progress elsewhere is challenging.

Brazil: Illegal logging continues

Some 60% of the Amazon rainforest is in Brazil, and it plays a vital role in absorbing harmful CO2 that would otherwise escape into the atmosphere.

Animal populations shrunk an average of 69% over the last half-century

Global animal populations are declining, and we've got limited time to try to fix it.

That's the upshot of a new report from the World Wildlife Fund and the Zoological Society of London, which analyzed years of data on thousands of wildlife populations across the world and found a downward trend in the Earth's biodiversity.

According to the Living Planet Index, a metric that's been in existence for five decades, animal populations across the world shrunk by an average of 69% between 1970 and 2018.

Not all animal populations dwindled, and some parts of the world saw more drastic changes than others. But experts say the steep loss of biodiversity is a stark and worrying sign of what's to come for the natural world.

"The message is clear and the lights are flashing red," said WWF International Director General Marco Lambertini.

According to the report's authors, the main cause of biodiversity loss is land-use changes driven by human activity, such as infrastructure development, energy production and deforestation.

Climate change may become the leading cause of biodiversity loss

Cattle graze near a fire in Amazonas, Brazil, on Sept. 22. A new report analyzed years of data on wildlife populations across the world and found a downward trend in the Earth's biodiversity.

Leaders meet to try to pass a UN treaty to protect oceans - August 2022

Whales and two babies swim underwater

World leaders will meet at the UN in New York later for more talks to save the world's oceans from overexploitation.

The UN High Seas Treaty has been through 10 years of negotiations but has yet to be signed.

If agreed, it would put 30% of the world's oceans into conservation areas by 2030.

Campaigners hope it will protect marine life from overfishing and other human activities.

Two-thirds of the world's oceans are currently considered international waters, which mean all countries have a right to fish, ship and do research there. But only 1.2% of these high seas, as they are referred to, are protected.

Kenya: Wildlife trafficking suspect seized after $1m reward

A crash, or group, of white rhinoceroses, also known as the square-lipped rhinoceros, is seen during a safari drive at the Shamwari Private Game Reserve on February 7, 2022 near the town of Paterson in South Africa's Eastern Cape province.

Mr Ahmed is suspected of trying to traffic rhinoceros horn and ivory


Kenyan police have arrested a man suspected of links to a transnational wildlife and drug trafficking syndicate who was indicted in a US court.

Abdi Hussein Ahmed, alias Abu Khadi, was detained on Tuesday in the central county of Meru after a tip-off from the public, police say.

Climate change 2022: More studies needed on possibility of human extinction

heat

Catastrophic climate change outcomes, including human extinction, are not being taken seriously enough by scientists, a new study says.

The authors say that the consequences of more extreme warming - still on the cards if no action is taken - are "dangerously underexplored".

They argue that the world needs to start preparing for the possibility of what they term the "climate endgame".

They want UN scientists to investigate the risk of catastrophic change. According to this new analysis, the closest attempts to directly understand or address how climate change could lead to global catastrophe have come from popular science books such as The Uninhabitable Earth and not from mainstream science research.

Nepal 2022: Return of the tigers brings both joy and fear

Nepal 2022: Return of the tigers brings both joy and fear

Bengal tiger

Endangered Bengal tigers are making a remarkable recovery in Nepal


Climate change killing elephants says Kenya

 

Kenya's Wildlife and Tourism ministry says that climate change is now a bigger threat to elephant conservation than poaching.

In the past year, the country has recorded 179 elephant deaths due to the ongoing drought affecting the Horn of Africa.

Following consecutive seasons of poor rains, rivers and water pans have dried up and grasslands have shrivelled in the game reserves.

Cheetahs to prowl India for first time in 70 years

A captive cheetah licks her sibling in an enclosure at the Cheetah Conservation Fund in Otjiwarongo, Namibia, on February 18, 2016.

Namibia has one of the world's largest populations of cheetahs


For the first time in 70 years, India's forests will be home to cheetahs.

Eight of them are set to arrive in August from Namibia, home to one of the world's largest populations of the wild cat.

Their return comes decades after India's indigenous population was declared officially extinct in 1952.

The world's fastest land animal, the cheetah can reach speeds of 70 miles (113km) an hour.

Australia's environment in 'shocking' decline, report finds

Overhead view of trees destroyed by bushfires in Australia

Australia has suffered a litany of natural disasters in recent years including historic bushfires


Australia's environment is in a shocking state and faces further decline from amplifying threats, according to an anticipated report.

The survey of Australia's ecological systems - conducted every five years - found widespread abrupt changes.

These can be blamed on climate change, habitat loss, invasive species, pollution and mining, it said.

The threats are not being adequately managed - meaning they are on track to cause more problems.

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