The nature conservation treaty signed in 2022 called for a halt to biodiversity loss by 2030 and a restoration of some of the natural quality of the past by 2050. Pretty ambitious language! How will we know if we are making progress towards a world where humans share the planet with our fellow species (and not just the ones we find useful at the moment)?
The two most important measures of success in 2030 will be the Red List Index and the Living Planet Index. The first looks at the proportion of species in five buckets of successively rarer status. The greater the proportion of species in the rarer categories, the lower the Red List Index goes. One of the issues here is getting recent updates on the status of species. Biologists have loads of new information to make these updates, including social media posts and genetic tests. However, it is difficult to know whether we are giving the same amount of attention to each bucket. Care has been taken not to bias the results because of the frequency of updates or the quality of the information. The aggregate score for five groups shows a steep decline in biodiversity in recent decades (Figure 1). This result is heavily influenced by the state of coral species in our changing oceans. The warming and acidification of oceans is rapidly changing the odds of extinction for coral species. It is possible, but not likely, that new information for mammal and bird species will yield a rate of decline that is close to zero by 2030. The real test for conservation will lie in the status of these groups in 2050. Can habitat restoration and protection result in a shift of species to less endangered categories?
A more sensitive measure of biodiversity is the Living Planet Index, an average of the growth trends of selected animal populations around the world (Figure 2). There are 34 thousand populations from around the world that are being monitored as part of the index. Those populations representing groups with a lot of species diversity are given the most weight in coming up with an average for the planet. The index has declined steadily since observations began in the 1970’s, only beginning to level off in the last decade. There is a reasonable chance that the index will be found to be stable by 2030, even if populations are, on average, one fifth of their previous size.
Making a difference
The Convention on Biological Diversity requires countries to post plans for how they will halt and reverse the loss of species. Canada’s plan involves more protected areas, better connections between them and specific actions in industries like fishing and forestry. However, internal reports argue that the federal government is not doing enough to track the status of rare species nor to track whether conservation efforts are making a difference. Some creative thinking is needed to show what works best in improving indices like Red List and Living Planet. I am hopeful that we can pass on a more vibrant and resilient planet for future generations.