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Humans Have Destroyed 10% Of The World’s Wilderness In 20 Years
At the time, that amounted to 30.1 million square kms or around 20 percent of the total land mass of Earth. The researchers say that much of the remaining wilderness is made up of large tracts of lands which may help in their survival.
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As the researchers note in their paper, the “trajectory of wilderness loss in the Amazon is particularly concerning” given that this area lost 30 percent of its wilderness in the last two decades, despite Amazon deforestation rates dropping significantly from 2005-2013. The study indicates those gaps are widening and time is fast running out. Find us on Facebook too!
The authors are calling for immediate action on worldwide policies to reverse the trend.
“The amount of wilderness loss in just two decades is staggering and very saddening”, says one of the team, James Watson, from the University of Queensland in Australia and the Wildlife Conservation Society in NY.
And because the report isn’t already bleak enough, the researchers also pointed out that, despite this distressingly fast loss of wilderness area over the last two decades, nearly nothing is being done about it today. In other words, although conservation is mentioned in the accords, none of them specifically acknowledge the need to maintain globally significant areas of wilderness. The researchers then compared their current map of wilderness to one produced by the same methods in the early 1990s.
The majority of the wilderness left behind is in North America, North Asia, North Africa and Australia.
“The wilderness decline around the world is most in the tropical biomes?, the tropical rain forests? have lost a lot of wilderness”, study co-author Oscar Venter, of the University of Northern British Columbia, told CBS News. “We need to recognize that wilderness areas, which we’ve foolishly considered to be de-facto protected due to their remoteness, is actually being dramatically lost around the world”. “Without proactive global interventions we could lose the last jewels in nature’s crown”. Watson has shared that once wilderness areas are lost, the ecological processes behind these ecosystems are also lost and they never make a comeback.
They key is protect what is left.
Scientists from the Wildlife Conservation Society have reached the conclusion after assessing satellite and survey data dating back to the 1990s.
The study did not delve into reasons why, but Watson said it comes down to increased development by the planet’s growing human population. “We have a duty to act for our children and their children”.
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MISSION: WCS saves wildlife and wild places worldwide through science, conservation action, education, and inspiring people to value nature.