As the COP16 biodiversity summit in Cali, Colombia, continues into its second week, the need for action is becoming clearer. With 23 goals to achieve, experts warn that human activities are harming the planet and causing a serious loss of biodiversity. This loss affects not just wildlife, but also our well-being, as healthy ecosystems provide us with clean air, water, and food. 

What do the scientists say?

Tom Oliver, a professor of applied ecology at the University of Reading, says, “We are already locked in for significant damage and now are heading towards the direction that will witness more.“I worry that negative changes could be very rapid.”

Oliver warns of a looming food crisis in the next 15-20 years, potentially caused by multiple breadbasket failures. This, coupled with other environmental threats like freshwater pollution, ocean acidification, wildfires, and algal blooms, highlights the severe impact of biodiversity loss on human well-being.

What did the numbers say?

According to IPBES, three-quarters of the earth’s surface has already been changed and two-thirds of the oceans are degraded by humankind’s altered consumption. The decline of inland wetlands is particularly alarming, with over a third disappearing between 1970 and 2015, a rate three times faster than forest loss.

The latest report of IPBES says land degradation through human activities is affecting the well-being of at least 3.2 billion people. Even though humans have damaged the Earth a lot, there's still hope. Fixing the damage to nature can be very beneficial, and the rewards could be ten times more than the effort. This allows us to undo the harm and make a better future for our planet.

The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework sets an ambitious goal: to restore 30% of degraded land, inland water, marine, and coastal ecosystems by 2030. This is one of 23 targets aimed at protecting biodiversity and ensuring a sustainable future for our planet.

As per the access, over a quarter of plants and animals were categorized under the IUCN’s Red List of threatened species at risk of extinction. Meanwhile, IPBES states, about a million species are at risk. 
Pollinators like bees and butterflies are dying, and this is a big problem for plants and the food we eat. Corals, which are important for many sea creatures, are also dying because the Earth is getting too warm. We need to stop global warming to protect these animals and our planet.

Professor Rick Stafford of Bournemouth University says that he has witnessed the decline of key species during his studies over a life. 20 years ago, there were sharks on the reefs of Indonesia when he used to go there for diving but now they have completely vanished. Their extinction has been a new normal but he can see the devastating effects of this extinction.