Rescue plan for nature: How to fix the biodiversity crisis

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We’ve been ravaging the planet’s ecosystems for too long, but crucial decisions this year could be the turning point that help us restore our relationship with nature

WE HAVE repeatedly been pressing the snooze button on the issue, but covid-19 has provided perhaps the final wake-up call. “2021 must be the year to reconcile humanity with nature,” said António Guterres, the UN secretary general, in an address to the One Planet Summit of global leaders in Paris last month. “Until now, we have been destroying our planet. We have been abusing it as if we have a spare one.”

The numbers are stark, whichever ones you choose. More than 70 per cent of ice-free land is now under human control and increasingly degraded. The mass of human-made infrastructure exceeds all biomass. Humans and domesticated animals make up more than 90 per cent of the mammalian mass on the planet. Our actions threaten about a million species – 1 in 8 – with extinction (see “Biodiversity: A status report“).

Read more: https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg24933223-300-rescue-plan-for-nature-how-to-fix-the-biodiversity-crisis/#ixzz6mp7Ph7Sk