Digging deeper
Putting the spotlight on the biggest issues in gardening today
Gardeners together can protect biodiversity
Recent reports such as the
World Wildlife Fund (WWF)
Living Planet Report
make it clear that over the past 50 years, human activity has led to an average decline of 73 per cent in global wildlife populations, with some regions reporting losses of as much as 95 per cent. Meanwhile the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s
Red List of Threatened Species
indicates that almost a third of species are at risk of extinction.
In terms of biodiversity, the UK isn’t faring well either, named as one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world in the State of Nature Report 2023.
Ecosystems are being pushed to such an extent that the world is close to irreversible global tipping points, such as the melting of polar ice sheets. Tipping points that, if surpassed, pose grave threats to humanity, most species and Earth’s life-support systems.
“We need major system-level change to how we produce food, how we produce energy, and how our financial system works,” explains Benedict Dempsey of WWF-UK. In the UK, WWF is calling for government adoption of the Living Planet Act to ensure the interconnected issues of nature, climate and food production are legislated in such a way that it leads to the change so urgently needed.