“This is not just about wildlife,” an expert said. “It’s about the essential ecosystems that sustain human life.”

Monitored populations of the world’s vertebrate animals declined on average by 73% between 1970 and 2020, according to a major report released Wednesday by the World Wild Fund for Nature and the Zoological Society of London.

The 94-page report, 2024 Living Planet Report: A System in Peril, details the extent of loss for over 5,000 species of mammals, birds, fish, amphibians, and reptiles. The findings are based on studies of about 35,000 local populations of the studied species.

It’s the latest version of a comprehensive report that has in the past been heavily cited by media, nonprofit, and government figures around the world. The previous version, published in 2022, found a 69% decline using data through 2018.

WWF released the new report, which is based on data in the Living Planet Index (LPI) maintained by ZSL, in advance of the COP16 global biodiversity summit that starts in Cali, Colombia on October 21.

“It really does indicate to us that the fabric of nature is........

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