According to the UN "a part of nature is lost and what remains is in decline"

"Much of nature is already lost and what's left is declining", experts from United Nations (UN) sure the biodiversity in a report that highlights disturbing aspects of the environment: Devastated ecosystems, contaminated water, stale air and hundreds of thousands of species threatened with extinction.

This conclusion comes from a 1,800-page study project that the international news agency had access to AFPAfter a meeting of Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) in Paris.

According to the document, "today, 75% of the terrestrial environment, 40% of the marine environment and 50% of the watercourses show significant signs of degradation."

Nature renders invaluable services to man as water, food, energy, textiles, minerals, medicines. For example, agricultural production, made possible by soils and pollinating insects, It is steadily increasing and fish catches have increased by 50% over the last 50 years.

On the other hand, it is pointed out that more than 40% of the land is now agricultural and urban and that only 13% of the oceans and 23% of the land are clbadified as "virgins" in very isolated or unproductive places.

"More than one third of the land and three quarters of the water resources are used for agricultural production and livestock", of text.

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Soil degradation has reduced agricultural productivity by more than 20% of the land area and affected more than 3 billion people. And agriculture continues to grow, especially "at the expense of the rainforest".

Between 1990 and 2015, The global forest cover has decreased by about 6%, from 4,280 million hectares to 3,990 million hectares.

"Nearly 60% of the world's population lives in cities and, as a result, urban areas have doubled since 1992, occupying mainly sheets and plains.", according to the report.

Pollution is more difficult to evaluate, but the use of fertilizer has increased.

On the other hand, more than 80% of the planet's wastewater is discharged into the environment without treatment and "300 to 400 million tonnes of heavy metals, toxic wastewater and sewage. other waste is discharged every year into the water "" That's why the UN stands out "40% of the world's population does not have access to clean and potable water"

Meanwhile, the oceans, where millions of tons of plastic are dumped each year, do not come out any better. The 70 000 vessels of the industrial fishing fleet now cover "at least 55% of the seas". In addition, "about 75% of the main fish stocks"They are currently exhausted or overexploited.

"Death in suspense." Scientists estimate about 8 million the number of animal and plant species on the planet. But only a tiny part of them is evaluated. About 25% of the 100 000 spices studied by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) for its famous red list are clbadified as endangered and 872 have been extinct for 500 years.

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But the report from the IPBES expert group is much more dramatic: between 500,000 and a million species would be in danger today.

By extrapolating from multiple species badessments, it's "It is likely that at least a million species of animals and plants are threatened with extinction", says this document.

Scientists, who use another method of estimation based on habitat loss, reach the probably "cautious" figure of half a million, including 3,000 vertebrates and more than 40,000 plants.

These species are "death pending"because they're probably already"sentenced to disappearance"as a result of damage to their habitat.

Video about extinct species:

JPA EA