The Living World
Biodiversity Collapse
| System | Metric | Value |
|---|---|---|
| All vertebrates | Population decline since 1970 | 73% |
| Species monitored | Living Planet Index | 5,495 species |
| Fish stocks overfished | Up from 10% (1974) | 37.7% |
| Fish stocks fully fished | At maximum capacity | ~52% |
| Fish stocks underfished | Remaining | ~10% |
| Tropical primary forest lost (2024) | 80% increase over prior years | 6.7 million hectares |
Overfishing in Detail
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| Ocean floor trawled annually | 1.5% (2x USA area) |
| Trawling vs deforestation | 20–47x greater disturbance |
| Global bycatch | 38–40 million tonnes (40% of catch) |
| Dolphins/whales killed as bycatch | 300,000+/year |
| Sharks caught annually | 50 million |
| Ghost fishing gear lost/year | 640,000 tonnes |
| Ocean effectively protected | Only 2.8% |
Bottom Trawling Carbon
Bottom trawling releases 55–60% of disturbed seabed carbon back into the water column. The annual release is estimated at 0.34–0.37 Pg CO₂/year — nearly double the fuel emissions of the entire global fishing fleet. We are literally scraping the ocean floor and unlocking carbon that has been sequestered for millennia.
Forests Matter
Forests store 30% of terrestrial carbon and are home to 80% of terrestrial biodiversity. They regulate global rainfall patterns, stabilise soil, and cool the planet. Yet the Amazon is approaching a savanna tipping point beyond which the world’s largest rainforest could irreversibly convert to degraded grassland.
Sources
- WWF Living Planet Report 2024
- FAO State of World Fisheries 2024
- PNAS — Bottom Trawl Footprints
- Frontiers — Trawling Carbon Emissions
- BirdLife — 200,000 Seabirds Annually
- WWF — Ghost Fishing Gear
- World Resources Institute — Forest Loss 2024
- Global Forest Watch
- Conservation International — Ocean Protection