Ecosystem Calamity: Climate Change and Pollution Threaten Biodiversity and Wildlife, Part 3 of a Multi-part Series

A comprehensive study by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), a Shining World Compassion Award recipient, called the Living Planet Report 2022 confirms the rapid decline of Earth’s animal-people species. The results were alarming. The scientists discovered that an average population decline of 69% in all species occurred during the last half-century.

Elizabeth Mrema, the Deputy Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), says we must halt further losses. “We depend on biodiversity for the food we eat, the water we drink, the sequestration of carbon, the medicines we take. The biggest threat is us human beings. I'm saying so because 97% of the global biodiversity is degraded as the result of human action.” Dame E. J. Milner-Gulland, a professor of biodiversity at Oxford University, explains how our dietary choices are destroying Earth’s balance. “The two things that threaten biodiversity the most at the moment are overharvesting and land conversion. And that's not just clearance of land for livestock to graze; it's clearance of land for food for livestock to eat and clearance of the oceans, I should also say, for food.” Tanya Steele, the UK's chief executive officer of WWF, hopes the study will serve as a wake-up call for world leaders. “This is our most comprehensive report ever, and it is a stark warning for us. If wildlife and its habitats don't survive, then neither will we. We are destroying so much nature by the way we live and work and consume as human beings and it is no longer sustainable.”

Our Most Gracious Supreme Master Ching Hai (vegan) has frequently warned about the imminent dangers of biodiversity loss and climate change. “All the leaders just have to sit together and sign it. They have the law already. They just have to act on it. (Yes.) All you have to do is just change all these slaughterhouses, abattoirs into vegan farms, vegetable farms. Organic farms are better. They have to use their power that the people entrusted to them to do good for the people.”