Living Planet Report

Um, this is, uh, not, not a, not a feel-good story like the last one, but, um, this says, "Africa's monitored wildlife populations declined 80% since 1970, new report states." Africa's monitored wildlife, uh, monitored vertebrate populations shrank by an average of 80% between 1970 and 2022, exceeding the global 73% decline, but below Latin America and Caribbean's 95%.

The Living Planet Report 2026 analyzed 35,803 population trends covering 507... 5,790 mammal, bird, reptile, and amphibian species.

Its index reflects- Changes in monitored population sizes, not the loss of 80% of Africa's individual animals or species.

Uh, habitat destruction and degradation are leading pressures compu- compounded by overexploitation, climate change, po- pollution, disease, and invasive species.

Wildlife populations have fallen 73% on average since 1970.

That's the headline figure in the World Wildlife Fund's Living Planet Report 2026, published on October 7th.

The number's an average of change it monitored in population sizes.

It's not a count of lost animals.

A report from the World Wildlife Fund chronicles a seventy-three percent drop in the average size of monitored wildlife populations from nineteen seventy until twenty twenty-two.

NPR's Ari Daniel says that's according to the fund's biannual Living Planet Report.

This year's index adds almost three hundred species, and the overall global decline in biodiversity doesn't appear to be slowing down.

But the report points to a handful of species that have recovered or ticked upwards due to sustained conservation efforts: bluefin tuna, green sea turtles, tigers, and certain populations of elephants.

So, um, w- I'm talking about the WWF Living Report.

So yesterday, the World Wildlife Fund for Nature, which is otherwise known as WWF, published its Living Planet Report.

The report, which is published every two years, looks at the variety of animals and plants and other living things on the planet.

So working with the Zoological Society of London, the report focuses on which species are at risk and which are recovering.

On Wednesday, a judge said she would issue an order to the state to preserve evidence in the case.

The World Wildlife Fund has published its biannual Living Planet Report, which chronicles a 73% drop in the average size of monitored wildlife populations from 1970 until 2022.

Here's NPR's Ari Daniel.

This year's index adds almost 300 species, and the overall global decline in biodiversity doesn't appear to be slowing down.

[chuckles]

So the new Living Planet Report and Living Planet Index have just been released, and the LPI shows a seventy-three percent decline since nineteen seventy.

What exactly has declined by seventy-three percent?

So it's, uh, it's the index that has declined by that percentage.