World Wildlife Fund Says Animal Populations Showing Drastic Decline - East Idaho News
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World Wildlife Fund Says Animal Populations Showing Drastic Decline

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Thinkstock 093014 Earth?  SQUARESPACE CACHEVERSION=14121213678231xpert/iStockphoto/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) — The World Wildlife Fund released its annual Living Planet Report on Tuesday, noting that the number of animals on Earth has dropped drastically in just two human generations.

Since 1970, the WWF says, population sizes of vertebrate species have diminished by 52 percent. The most dramatic figures were among freshwater species, which saw populations drop by 76 percent in that timespan.

A WWF statement notes that while protecting nature may seem to be a luxury to some, the opposite is true: “For many of the world’s poorest people, [nature] is a lifeline.”

Interestingly, even though high-income countries tend to have among the largest carbon footprints and low-income countries have the smallest, the WWF’s measure of biodiversity shows an inverse relationship. High-income nations showed a 10-percent jump in biodiversity, while low-income nations saw a marked (58 percent) decline.


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