Wildlife populations have declined by an average of 69 percent over the past 52 years, according to a new report by the World Wildlife Fund.
Fish, amphibians, birds, reptiles and mammals are severely affected, the report states, adding that the worst situation is in Latin America and the Caribbean.
The report emphasizes that the state of nature is seriously damaged and warns governments, corporations and all people to make urgent changes to stop the destruction of biodiversity.
The largest database to date, which includes almost 32.000 populations of 5.230 species, the Index of Life on the Planet, shows that a particularly sharp decline has been recorded among populations of observed vertebrates in the tropics.
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The report shows that the observed size of wildlife populations in Latin America and the Caribbean has declined by an average of 94 percent since 1970, followed by declines of 66 percent in Africa and 55 percent in the Asia-Pacific region.
Major biodiversity losses occurred in Europe and North America before 1970, the authors point out, noting that Europe is one of the regions with the lowest scores in terms of biodiversity intactness.
The main causes of wildlife decline are habitat loss, overexploitation of natural resources (through activities such as mining, logging or fishing), invasive species, pollution, climate change and disease.
Of the 5.230 species monitored, populations in freshwater ecosystems have seen the greatest decline - an average of 83 percent.
"It includes fish, amphibians and birds," said Louise McRae, a research associate at the Zoological Society of London, which produced the Living Planet Index report.
"Whereas in the case of reptile and mammal populations, about half have decreased and the other half have increased," she tells the BBC.
One striking example of the decline in the population of a freshwater species is the Amazonian pink river dolphin.
"It declined by 65 percent between 1994 and 2016 in the Mamirau Sustainable Development Reserve in the Brazilian state of Amazonas," the report said.
This is not the first time that scientists have warned of a serious loss of biodiversity.
The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services announced in 2019 that one million animal and plant species are threatened with extinction, many within decades.
These losses increasingly threaten Earth's viability as a living planet, scientists say.
Healthy natural ecosystems such as forests or oceans not only absorb the carbon dioxide gas that warms the planet, but can also help reduce the damage from the effects of climate change, such as floods, hurricanes and droughts.
"We are faced with two extraordinary situations caused by human action - climate change and the loss of biodiversity, which threaten the well-being of current and future generations.
"This report presents shocking figures," says Marco Lambertini, director general of VVF International.
He emphasizes that the answer to the loss of nature, that is to ensure a healthy future for people and nature, must be a change in the system.
"Although Europe and Central Asia recorded the lowest rate of decline - 18 percent - it should be emphasized that many species had already suffered great losses at the time when the measurements began.
"According to the latest data for Europe, bird and mammal populations are showing positive trends, while amphibians, reptiles and freshwater fish populations are on average declining," says Goran Sekulić, program associate of VVF Adria.
In the Balkans, too, the population of freshwater fish is decreasing, mainly due to the construction of hydropower plants, many of which are unnecessary, he emphasizes.
"Reduction of populations of freshwater species worldwide by as much as 83 percent." indicates the critical state of water ecosystems, without which there is no human on Earth.
"There are a number of endangered species in our region, and the most famous example is the sturgeon, a fish that is considered a living fossil.
"In addition, the survival of our big beasts, the wolf, bear and lynx (which was on the verge of extermination in some habitats not so long ago), is threatened today," says Sekulić.
He points out that the Adriatic Sea is also overfished and that "it is increasingly clear that the year 2048, which scientists mark as the moment when there will be more plastic in the seas than fish, will arrive earlier than we thought".
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Report Global Biodiversity Outlook 5 The Convention on Biological Diversity, a global agreement to conserve nature, revealed two years ago that the world had failed to fully meet any of the targets agreed by world leaders in 2010 to halt the precipitous decline of nature by 2020.
The goals included, among other things, the fight against deforestation and pollution, stopping the overexploitation of natural resources and protecting the habitats of wild animals.
"You might not realize the deep natural damage if you're just looking out of a window that might give you a beautiful view of rolling green hills," Mark Wright, director of Britain's VVF, told the BBC.
"It's like looking at a big library building that looks so impressive from a distance.
"But when you enter the building, you see huge empty shelves. And when you start looking for books, you'll find that many of them are missing, or that the ones you find are missing whole pages or simply blank."
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