posts: 41999
Data license: CC-BY
This data as json
| id | title | slug | type | status | content | archieml | archieml_update_statistics | published_at | updated_at | gdocSuccessorId | authors | excerpt | created_at_in_wordpress | updated_at_in_wordpress | featured_image | formattingOptions | markdown | wpApiSnapshot |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 41999 | How many species has conservation saved from extinction? | untitled-reusable-block-270 | wp_block | publish | <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>It’s hard to find good news on the state of the world’s wildlife. Many predict that we’re heading for a sixth mass extinction; the Living Planet Index reports a 68% average decline in wildlife populations since 1970; and we <a href="http://ourworldindata.org/deforestation">continue to lose</a> the tropical habitats that support our most diverse ecosystems. The United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity set twenty targets – the <a href="https://www.cbd.int/sp/targets/">Aichi Biodiversity Targets</a> – to be achieved by 2020. The world missed all of them.{ref}Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity (2020). <a href="https://www.cbd.int/gbo/gbo5/publication/gbo-5-en.pdf">Global Biodiversity Outlook 5</a>. Montreal.{/ref} We didn’t meet a single one.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Perhaps, then, the loss of biodiversity is unavoidable. Maybe there is nothing we can do to turn things around.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Thankfully there are signs of hope. As we will see, conservation action might have been insufficient to meet our Aichi targets, but it <em>did</em> make a difference. Tens of species were saved through these interventions. There’s other evidence that protected areas have retained bird diversity in tropical ecosystems. And each year there are a number of species that move away from the extinction zone on the <a href="https://www.iucnredlist.org/">IUCN Red List</a>.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>We need to make sure these stories of success are heard. Of course, we shouldn’t use them to mask the bad news. They definitely don’t make up for the large losses in wildlife we’re seeing around the world. In fact, the risk here is asymmetric: growth in one wildlife population does not offset a species getting pushed to extinction. A species lost to extinction is a species lost forever. We can’t make up for this loss by simply increasing the population of something else. But we can make sure two messages are communicated at the same time. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>First, that we’re losing our biodiversity at a rapid rate. Second, that it’s possible to do something about it. If there was no hope of the second one being true, what would be the point of trying? If our actions really made no difference then why would governments support anymore conservation efforts? No, we need to be vocal about the positives as well as the negatives to make clear that progress is possible. And, importantly, understand what we did right so that we can do more of it.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>In this article I want to take a look at some of these positive trends, and better understand how we achieved them.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:heading {"level":4} --> <h4>Pulling animals back from the brink of extinction</h4> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:columns --> <div class="wp-block-columns"><!-- wp:column --> <div class="wp-block-column"><!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>For anyone interested in wildlife conservation, losing a species to extinction is a tragedy. Saving a species is surely one of life’s greatest successes. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Conservation efforts might have saved tens of beautiful species over the last few decades. The 12th Aichi Target was to ‘prevent extinctions of known threatened species’. We might have missed this, but efforts have not been completely in vain.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>In a recent study published in <em>Conservation Letters</em>, researchers estimate that between 28 and 48 bird and mammal species would have gone extinct without the conservation efforts implemented when the Convention on Biological Diversity came into force in 1993.{ref}Bolam, F. C., Mair, L., Angelico, M., Brooks, T. M., Burgman, M., Hermes, C., ... & Butchart, S. H. (2021). <a href="https://conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/conl.12762">How many bird and mammal extinctions has recent conservation action prevented?</a>. <em>Conservation Letters</em>, <em>14</em>(1), e12762.{/ref} 21 to 32 bird species, and 7 to 16 mammal species were pulled back from the brink of extinction. In the last decade alone (from 2010 to 2020), 9 to 18 bird, and 2 to 7 mammal extinctions were prevented. This has preserved hundreds of millions of years of evolutionary history. It prevented the loss of 120 million years of evolutionary history of birds, and 26 million years for mammals.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>What this means is that extinction rates over the last two decades would have been at least three to four times faster without conservation efforts. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>This does not mean that these species are out-of-danger. In fact, the populations of some of these species is still decreasing. We see this in the chart, which shows how the populations of these bird and mammal species that were expected to have gone extinct are changing. 16% of these bird species, and 13% of the mammal species have gone extinct in the wild, but conservation has allowed them to survive in captivity. Across the critically endangered, endangered and vulnerable categories, 53% of bird and 31% of mammal species have increasing or stable populations. This is positive, but makes clear that many of these species are still in decline. Conservation has only been able to slow these losses down.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>This only looks at species on the brink of extinction. Many species in serious but less-threatened categories have been prevented from moving closer to extinction. Around 52 species of mammals, birds and amphibians move one category closer to extinction every year. Without conservation, this number would be 20% higher.{ref}Hoffmann, M., Hilton-Taylor, C., Angulo, A., Böhm, M., Brooks, T. M., Butchart, S. H., ... & Veloso, A. (2010). <a href="https://science.sciencemag.org/content/330/6010/1503">The impact of conservation on the status of the world’s vertebrates</a>. <em>Science</em>, <em>330</em>(6010), 1503-1509.{/ref}</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>There are more examples. Studies have shown that protected areas have had a positive impact on preserving bird species in tropical forests.{ref}Cazalis, V., Princé, K., Mihoub, J. B., Kelly, J., Butchart, S. H., & Rodrigues, A. S. (2020). <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-18230-0">Effectiveness of protected areas in conserving tropical forest birds</a>. <em>Nature Communications</em>, <em>11</em>(1), 1-8.{/ref} These are some of the world’s most threatened ecosystems. And while the IUCN Red List usually makes for a depressing read, there are some success stories. This year the European Bison, Europe’s largest land mammals, <a href="https://www.iucn.org/news/species/202012/european-bison-recovering-31-species-declared-extinct-iucn-red-list">was moved from</a> ‘Vulnerable’ to ‘Near threatened’ (meaning it’s less threatened with extinction) thanks to continued conservation efforts. We will look at more European success stories later.<br><br>Friederike Bolam et al. (2021) looked at what conservation actions were key to saving the mammal and bird species deemed to be destined for extinction.{ref}Bolam, F. C., Mair, L., Angelico, M., Brooks, T. M., Burgman, M., Hermes, C., ... & Butchart, S. H. (2021). <a href="https://conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/conl.12762">How many bird and mammal extinctions has recent conservation action prevented?</a>. <em>Conservation Letters</em>, <em>14</em>(1), e12762.{/ref} For both birds and mammals, legal protection and the growth of protected areas was important. Protected areas are not perfect – there are countless examples of poorly managed areas where populations continue to shrink. We will look at how effective protected areas are in a <strong>follow-up article</strong>. But, on average, they do make a difference. Clearly these efforts were critical for species that had gone extinct in the wild. Other important factors were controlling the spread of invasive species into new environments; reintroducing old species into environments where they had been previously lost; and restoring natural habitats, such as wetlands and forests.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --></div> <!-- /wp:column --> <!-- wp:column --> <div class="wp-block-column"><!-- wp:image {"id":41998,"sizeSlug":"large","linkDestination":"none"} --> <figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img src="https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/03/Number-of-bird-and-mammal-species-saved-from-extinction-Bolam-et-al.-2020-800x502.png" alt="" class="wp-image-41998"/></figure> <!-- /wp:image --></div> <!-- /wp:column --></div> <!-- /wp:columns --> <!-- wp:heading {"level":4} --> <h4>Restoring wildlife populations across Europe</h4> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:columns --> <div class="wp-block-columns"><!-- wp:column --> <div class="wp-block-column"><!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>The European Bison might steal the headlines, but there are many good news stories across Europe. Many of the drivers of biodiversity loss – deforestation, overhunting, and habitat loss – are happening in the tropics today. But these same changes also happened across Europe and North America. Only, they happened earlier – centuries ago. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Europe is now trying to restore its lost wildlife and habitats through rewilding programmes. The Zoological Society of London, Birdlife International and European Bird Census Council published a report which details how these efforts are going.{ref}Ledger, S.E.H, Rutherford, C.A, Benham, C., Burfield, I.J., Deinet, S., Eaton, M., Freeman, R., Gray, C., Herrando, S., Scott-Gatty, K., Staneva, A and McRae, L., (2022) <a href="https://rewildingeurope.com/wildlife-comeback-report-2022/">Wildlife Comeback in Europe: Opportunities and challenges for species recovery</a>. Final report to Rewilding Europe by the Zoological Society of London, BirdLife International and the European Bird Census Council. London, UK: ZSL.{/ref}<br><br>They looked at how the populations of 24 mammal and 25 of Europe’s iconic bird species had changed over the past 50 years. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Most had seen an overwhelming recovery. Most species saw an increase of more than 100%. Some saw more than 1000% growth. Brown bear populations more than doubled over these 50 years. Wolverine populations doubled in the 1990s alone. The Eurasian lynx increased by 500%. Reintroduction programmes of the Eurasian beaver saw populations increase by 16,000% – a doubling or tripling every decade.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>What were the main drivers of this recovery?</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Part of Europe’s success in restoring wildlife populations in recent decades can be attributed to the fact that their development and harvesting of resources came long ago. My European ancestors had already hunted many species to extinction; expanded agricultural land into existing forest; and built cities, roads and other infrastructure that fragments natural habitats. Only in our very recent past have European countries been able to reverse these trends: reforesting; raising livestock instead of hunting; and now reducing the amount of land we use for agriculture through improved productivity.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>But there have also been a number of proactive interventions to restore populations. In the chart here we see the main drivers of recovery across European bird species. At the top of the list is legal protection, this includes preventing the disturbance and shooting of birds species and the collection of their eggs. Another key intervention is habitat restoration – the re-establishment of wetlands, grasslands, forests and other national habitats. Reintroduction of species has also been key. But <em>protecting</em> existing habitats and species has been more important.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>After millennia of habitat loss and exploitation by humans, wildlife is coming back to Europe. Somewhat ironically, humans have played an important role in this.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>While most biodiversity trends point towards a barren future for the planet’s wildlife, there <em>are</em> success stories to draw upon. These should not make us complacent, or deflect our attention from the seriousness of these losses. But I think it is important to highlight what we have achieved. Protecting the world’s wildlife is not impossible – we’ve just seen the counter-evidence to this. To commit to wider conservation efforts we need to shout more loudly about these wins. Otherwise policymakers will turn their backs on them and we will lose many beautiful species that we could and should have saved.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --></div> <!-- /wp:column --> <!-- wp:column --> <div class="wp-block-column"><!-- wp:html --> <iframe src="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/drivers-of-recovery-in-european-bird-populations" loading="lazy" style="width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;"></iframe> <!-- /wp:html --></div> <!-- /wp:column --></div> <!-- /wp:columns --> | {
"id": "wp-41999",
"slug": "untitled-reusable-block-270",
"content": {
"toc": [],
"body": [
{
"type": "text",
"value": [
{
"text": "It\u2019s hard to find good news on the state of the world\u2019s wildlife. Many predict that we\u2019re heading for a sixth mass extinction; the Living Planet Index reports a 68% average decline in wildlife populations since 1970; and we ",
"spanType": "span-simple-text"
},
{
"url": "http://ourworldindata.org/deforestation",
"children": [
{
"text": "continue to lose",
"spanType": "span-simple-text"
}
],
"spanType": "span-link"
},
{
"text": " the tropical habitats that support our most diverse ecosystems. The United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity set twenty targets \u2013 the ",
"spanType": "span-simple-text"
},
{
"url": "https://www.cbd.int/sp/targets/",
"children": [
{
"text": "Aichi Biodiversity Targets",
"spanType": "span-simple-text"
}
],
"spanType": "span-link"
},
{
"text": " \u2013 to be achieved by 2020. The world missed all of them.{ref}Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity (2020). ",
"spanType": "span-simple-text"
},
{
"url": "https://www.cbd.int/gbo/gbo5/publication/gbo-5-en.pdf",
"children": [
{
"text": "Global Biodiversity Outlook 5",
"spanType": "span-simple-text"
}
],
"spanType": "span-link"
},
{
"text": ". Montreal.{/ref} We didn\u2019t meet a single one.",
"spanType": "span-simple-text"
}
],
"parseErrors": []
},
{
"type": "text",
"value": [
{
"text": "Perhaps, then, the loss of biodiversity is unavoidable. Maybe there is nothing we can do to turn things around.",
"spanType": "span-simple-text"
}
],
"parseErrors": []
},
{
"type": "text",
"value": [
{
"text": "Thankfully there are signs of hope. As we will see, conservation action might have been insufficient to meet our Aichi targets, but it ",
"spanType": "span-simple-text"
},
{
"children": [
{
"text": "did",
"spanType": "span-simple-text"
}
],
"spanType": "span-italic"
},
{
"text": " make a difference. Tens of species were saved through these interventions. There\u2019s other evidence that protected areas have retained bird diversity in tropical ecosystems. And each year there are a number of species that move away from the extinction zone on the ",
"spanType": "span-simple-text"
},
{
"url": "https://www.iucnredlist.org/",
"children": [
{
"text": "IUCN Red List",
"spanType": "span-simple-text"
}
],
"spanType": "span-link"
},
{
"text": ".",
"spanType": "span-simple-text"
}
],
"parseErrors": []
},
{
"type": "text",
"value": [
{
"text": "We need to make sure these stories of success are heard. Of course, we shouldn\u2019t use them to mask the bad news. They definitely don\u2019t make up for the large losses in wildlife we\u2019re seeing around the world. In fact, the risk here is asymmetric: growth in one wildlife population does not offset a species getting pushed to extinction. A species lost to extinction is a species lost forever. We can\u2019t make up for this loss by simply increasing the population of something else. But we can make sure two messages are communicated at the same time.\u00a0",
"spanType": "span-simple-text"
}
],
"parseErrors": []
},
{
"type": "text",
"value": [
{
"text": "First, that we\u2019re losing our biodiversity at a rapid rate. Second, that it\u2019s possible to do something about it. If there was no hope of the second one being true, what would be the point of trying? If our actions really made no difference then why would governments support anymore conservation efforts? No, we need to be vocal about the positives as well as the negatives to make clear that progress is possible. And, importantly, understand what we did right so that we can do more of it.",
"spanType": "span-simple-text"
}
],
"parseErrors": []
},
{
"type": "text",
"value": [
{
"text": "In this article I want to take a look at some of these positive trends, and better understand how we achieved them.",
"spanType": "span-simple-text"
}
],
"parseErrors": []
},
{
"text": [
{
"text": "Pulling animals back from the brink of extinction",
"spanType": "span-simple-text"
}
],
"type": "heading",
"level": 2,
"parseErrors": []
},
{
"left": [
{
"type": "text",
"value": [
{
"text": "For anyone interested in wildlife conservation, losing a species to extinction is a tragedy. Saving a species is surely one of life\u2019s greatest successes.\u00a0",
"spanType": "span-simple-text"
}
],
"parseErrors": []
},
{
"type": "text",
"value": [
{
"text": "Conservation efforts might have saved tens of beautiful species over the last few decades. The 12th Aichi Target was to \u2018prevent extinctions of known threatened species\u2019. We might have missed this, but efforts have not been completely in vain.",
"spanType": "span-simple-text"
}
],
"parseErrors": []
},
{
"type": "text",
"value": [
{
"text": "In a recent study published in ",
"spanType": "span-simple-text"
},
{
"children": [
{
"text": "Conservation Letters",
"spanType": "span-simple-text"
}
],
"spanType": "span-italic"
},
{
"text": ", researchers estimate that between 28 and 48 bird and mammal species would have gone extinct without the conservation efforts implemented when the Convention on Biological Diversity came into force in 1993.{ref}Bolam, F. C., Mair, L., Angelico, M., Brooks, T. M., Burgman, M., Hermes, C., ... & Butchart, S. H. (2021). ",
"spanType": "span-simple-text"
},
{
"url": "https://conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/conl.12762",
"children": [
{
"text": "How many bird and mammal extinctions has recent conservation action prevented?",
"spanType": "span-simple-text"
}
],
"spanType": "span-link"
},
{
"text": ". ",
"spanType": "span-simple-text"
},
{
"children": [
{
"text": "Conservation Letters",
"spanType": "span-simple-text"
}
],
"spanType": "span-italic"
},
{
"text": ", ",
"spanType": "span-simple-text"
},
{
"children": [
{
"text": "14",
"spanType": "span-simple-text"
}
],
"spanType": "span-italic"
},
{
"text": "(1), e12762.{/ref} 21 to 32 bird species, and 7 to 16 mammal species were pulled back from the brink of extinction. In the last decade alone (from 2010 to 2020), 9 to 18 bird, and 2 to 7 mammal extinctions were prevented. This has preserved hundreds of millions of years of evolutionary history. It prevented the loss of 120 million years of evolutionary history of birds, and 26 million years for mammals.",
"spanType": "span-simple-text"
}
],
"parseErrors": []
},
{
"type": "text",
"value": [
{
"text": "What this means is that extinction rates over the last two decades would have been at least three to four times faster without conservation efforts.\u00a0",
"spanType": "span-simple-text"
}
],
"parseErrors": []
},
{
"type": "text",
"value": [
{
"text": "This does not mean that these species are out-of-danger. In fact, the populations of some of these species is still decreasing. We see this in the chart, which shows how the populations of these bird and mammal species that were expected to have gone extinct are changing. 16% of these bird species, and 13% of the mammal species have gone extinct in the wild, but conservation has allowed them to survive in captivity. Across the critically endangered, endangered and vulnerable categories, 53% of bird and 31% of mammal species have increasing or stable populations. This is positive, but makes clear that many of these species are still in decline. Conservation has only been able to slow these losses down.",
"spanType": "span-simple-text"
}
],
"parseErrors": []
},
{
"type": "text",
"value": [
{
"text": "This only looks at species on the brink of extinction. Many species in serious but less-threatened categories have been prevented from moving closer to extinction. Around 52 species of mammals, birds and amphibians move one category closer to extinction every year. Without conservation, this number would be 20% higher.{ref}Hoffmann, M., Hilton-Taylor, C., Angulo, A., B\u00f6hm, M., Brooks, T. M., Butchart, S. H., ... & Veloso, A. (2010). ",
"spanType": "span-simple-text"
},
{
"url": "https://science.sciencemag.org/content/330/6010/1503",
"children": [
{
"text": "The impact of conservation on the status of the world\u2019s vertebrates",
"spanType": "span-simple-text"
}
],
"spanType": "span-link"
},
{
"text": ". ",
"spanType": "span-simple-text"
},
{
"children": [
{
"text": "Science",
"spanType": "span-simple-text"
}
],
"spanType": "span-italic"
},
{
"text": ", ",
"spanType": "span-simple-text"
},
{
"children": [
{
"text": "330",
"spanType": "span-simple-text"
}
],
"spanType": "span-italic"
},
{
"text": "(6010), 1503-1509.{/ref}",
"spanType": "span-simple-text"
}
],
"parseErrors": []
},
{
"type": "text",
"value": [
{
"text": "There are more examples. Studies have shown that protected areas have had a positive impact on preserving bird species in tropical forests.{ref}Cazalis, V., Princ\u00e9, K., Mihoub, J. B., Kelly, J., Butchart, S. H., & Rodrigues, A. S. (2020). ",
"spanType": "span-simple-text"
},
{
"url": "https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-18230-0",
"children": [
{
"text": "Effectiveness of protected areas in conserving tropical forest birds",
"spanType": "span-simple-text"
}
],
"spanType": "span-link"
},
{
"text": ". ",
"spanType": "span-simple-text"
},
{
"children": [
{
"text": "Nature Communications",
"spanType": "span-simple-text"
}
],
"spanType": "span-italic"
},
{
"text": ", ",
"spanType": "span-simple-text"
},
{
"children": [
{
"text": "11",
"spanType": "span-simple-text"
}
],
"spanType": "span-italic"
},
{
"text": "(1), 1-8.{/ref} These are some of the world\u2019s most threatened ecosystems. And while the IUCN Red List usually makes for a depressing read, there are some success stories. This year the European Bison, Europe\u2019s largest land mammals, ",
"spanType": "span-simple-text"
},
{
"url": "https://www.iucn.org/news/species/202012/european-bison-recovering-31-species-declared-extinct-iucn-red-list",
"children": [
{
"text": "was moved from",
"spanType": "span-simple-text"
}
],
"spanType": "span-link"
},
{
"text": " \u2018Vulnerable\u2019 to \u2018Near threatened\u2019 (meaning it\u2019s less threatened with extinction) thanks to continued conservation efforts. We will look at more European success stories later.",
"spanType": "span-simple-text"
},
{
"spanType": "span-newline"
},
{
"spanType": "span-newline"
},
{
"text": "Friederike Bolam et al. (2021) looked at what conservation actions were key to saving the mammal and bird species deemed to be destined for extinction.{ref}Bolam, F. C., Mair, L., Angelico, M., Brooks, T. M., Burgman, M., Hermes, C., ... & Butchart, S. H. (2021). ",
"spanType": "span-simple-text"
},
{
"url": "https://conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/conl.12762",
"children": [
{
"text": "How many bird and mammal extinctions has recent conservation action prevented?",
"spanType": "span-simple-text"
}
],
"spanType": "span-link"
},
{
"text": ". ",
"spanType": "span-simple-text"
},
{
"children": [
{
"text": "Conservation Letters",
"spanType": "span-simple-text"
}
],
"spanType": "span-italic"
},
{
"text": ", ",
"spanType": "span-simple-text"
},
{
"children": [
{
"text": "14",
"spanType": "span-simple-text"
}
],
"spanType": "span-italic"
},
{
"text": "(1), e12762.{/ref} For both birds and mammals, legal protection and the growth of protected areas was important. Protected areas are not perfect \u2013 there are countless examples of poorly managed areas where populations continue to shrink. We will look at how effective protected areas are in a ",
"spanType": "span-simple-text"
},
{
"children": [
{
"text": "follow-up article",
"spanType": "span-simple-text"
}
],
"spanType": "span-bold"
},
{
"text": ". But, on average, they do make a difference. Clearly these efforts were critical for species that had gone extinct in the wild. Other important factors were controlling the spread of invasive species into new environments; reintroducing old species into environments where they had been previously lost; and restoring natural habitats, such as wetlands and forests.",
"spanType": "span-simple-text"
}
],
"parseErrors": []
}
],
"type": "sticky-right",
"right": [
{
"alt": "",
"size": "wide",
"type": "image",
"filename": "Number-of-bird-and-mammal-species-saved-from-extinction-Bolam-et-al.-2020.png",
"parseErrors": []
}
],
"parseErrors": []
},
{
"text": [
{
"text": "Restoring wildlife populations across Europe",
"spanType": "span-simple-text"
}
],
"type": "heading",
"level": 2,
"parseErrors": []
},
{
"left": [
{
"type": "text",
"value": [
{
"text": "The European Bison might steal the headlines, but there are many good news stories across Europe. Many of the drivers of biodiversity loss \u2013 deforestation, overhunting, and habitat loss \u2013 are happening in the tropics today. But these same changes also happened across Europe and North America. Only, they happened earlier \u2013 centuries ago.\u00a0",
"spanType": "span-simple-text"
}
],
"parseErrors": []
},
{
"type": "text",
"value": [
{
"text": "Europe is now trying to restore its lost wildlife and habitats through rewilding programmes. The Zoological Society of London, Birdlife International and European Bird Census Council published a report which details how these efforts are going.{ref}Ledger, S.E.H, Rutherford, C.A, Benham, C., Burfield, I.J., Deinet, S., Eaton, M., Freeman, R., Gray, C., Herrando, S., Scott-Gatty, K., Staneva, A and McRae, L., (2022) ",
"spanType": "span-simple-text"
},
{
"url": "https://rewildingeurope.com/wildlife-comeback-report-2022/",
"children": [
{
"text": "Wildlife Comeback in Europe: Opportunities and challenges for species recovery",
"spanType": "span-simple-text"
}
],
"spanType": "span-link"
},
{
"text": ". Final report to Rewilding Europe by the Zoological Society of London, BirdLife International and the European Bird Census Council. London, UK: ZSL.{/ref}",
"spanType": "span-simple-text"
},
{
"spanType": "span-newline"
},
{
"spanType": "span-newline"
},
{
"text": "They looked at how the populations of 24 mammal and 25 of Europe\u2019s iconic bird species had changed over the past 50 years.\u00a0",
"spanType": "span-simple-text"
}
],
"parseErrors": []
},
{
"type": "text",
"value": [
{
"text": "Most had seen an overwhelming recovery. Most species saw an increase of more than 100%. Some saw more than 1000% growth. Brown bear populations more than doubled over these 50 years. Wolverine populations doubled in the 1990s alone. The Eurasian lynx increased by 500%. Reintroduction programmes of the Eurasian beaver saw populations increase by 16,000% \u2013 a doubling or tripling every decade.",
"spanType": "span-simple-text"
}
],
"parseErrors": []
},
{
"type": "text",
"value": [
{
"text": "What were the main drivers of this recovery?",
"spanType": "span-simple-text"
}
],
"parseErrors": []
},
{
"type": "text",
"value": [
{
"text": "Part of Europe\u2019s success in restoring wildlife populations in recent decades can be attributed to the fact that their development and harvesting of resources came long ago. My European ancestors had already hunted many species to extinction; expanded agricultural land into existing forest; and built cities, roads and other infrastructure that fragments natural habitats. Only in our very recent past have European countries been able to reverse these trends: reforesting; raising livestock instead of hunting; and now reducing the amount of land we use for agriculture through improved productivity.",
"spanType": "span-simple-text"
}
],
"parseErrors": []
},
{
"type": "text",
"value": [
{
"text": "But there have also been a number of proactive interventions to restore populations. In the chart here we see the main drivers of recovery across European bird species. At the top of the list is legal protection, this includes preventing the disturbance and shooting of birds species and the collection of their eggs. Another key intervention is habitat restoration \u2013 the re-establishment of wetlands, grasslands, forests and other national habitats. Reintroduction of species has also been key. But ",
"spanType": "span-simple-text"
},
{
"children": [
{
"text": "protecting",
"spanType": "span-simple-text"
}
],
"spanType": "span-italic"
},
{
"text": " existing habitats and species has been more important.",
"spanType": "span-simple-text"
}
],
"parseErrors": []
},
{
"type": "text",
"value": [
{
"text": "After millennia of habitat loss and exploitation by humans, wildlife is coming back to Europe. Somewhat ironically, humans have played an important role in this.",
"spanType": "span-simple-text"
}
],
"parseErrors": []
},
{
"type": "text",
"value": [
{
"text": "While most biodiversity trends point towards a barren future for the planet\u2019s wildlife, there ",
"spanType": "span-simple-text"
},
{
"children": [
{
"text": "are",
"spanType": "span-simple-text"
}
],
"spanType": "span-italic"
},
{
"text": " success stories to draw upon. These should not make us complacent, or deflect our attention from the seriousness of these losses. But I think it is important to highlight what we have achieved. Protecting the world\u2019s wildlife is not impossible \u2013 we\u2019ve just seen the counter-evidence to this. To commit to wider conservation efforts we need to shout more loudly about these wins. Otherwise policymakers will turn their backs on them and we will lose many beautiful species that we could and should have saved.",
"spanType": "span-simple-text"
}
],
"parseErrors": []
}
],
"type": "sticky-right",
"right": [
{
"url": "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/drivers-of-recovery-in-european-bird-populations",
"type": "chart",
"parseErrors": []
}
],
"parseErrors": []
}
],
"type": "article",
"title": "How many species has conservation saved from extinction?",
"authors": [
null
],
"dateline": "March 25, 2021",
"sidebar-toc": false,
"featured-image": ""
},
"createdAt": "2021-03-25T13:50:04.000Z",
"published": false,
"updatedAt": "2022-12-12T15:44:27.000Z",
"revisionId": null,
"publishedAt": "2021-03-25T13:49:19.000Z",
"relatedCharts": [],
"publicationContext": "listed"
} |
{
"errors": [
{
"name": "unexpected wp component tag",
"details": "Found unhandled wp:comment tag image"
}
],
"numBlocks": 10,
"numErrors": 1,
"wpTagCounts": {
"html": 1,
"image": 1,
"column": 4,
"columns": 2,
"heading": 2,
"paragraph": 21
},
"htmlTagCounts": {
"p": 21,
"h4": 2,
"div": 6,
"figure": 1,
"iframe": 1
}
} |
2021-03-25 13:49:19 | 2024-02-16 14:23:01 | [
null
] |
2021-03-25 13:50:04 | 2022-12-12 15:44:27 | {} |
It’s hard to find good news on the state of the world’s wildlife. Many predict that we’re heading for a sixth mass extinction; the Living Planet Index reports a 68% average decline in wildlife populations since 1970; and we [continue to lose](http://ourworldindata.org/deforestation) the tropical habitats that support our most diverse ecosystems. The United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity set twenty targets – the [Aichi Biodiversity Targets](https://www.cbd.int/sp/targets/) – to be achieved by 2020. The world missed all of them.{ref}Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity (2020). [Global Biodiversity Outlook 5](https://www.cbd.int/gbo/gbo5/publication/gbo-5-en.pdf). Montreal.{/ref} We didn’t meet a single one. Perhaps, then, the loss of biodiversity is unavoidable. Maybe there is nothing we can do to turn things around. Thankfully there are signs of hope. As we will see, conservation action might have been insufficient to meet our Aichi targets, but it _did_ make a difference. Tens of species were saved through these interventions. There’s other evidence that protected areas have retained bird diversity in tropical ecosystems. And each year there are a number of species that move away from the extinction zone on the [IUCN Red List](https://www.iucnredlist.org/). We need to make sure these stories of success are heard. Of course, we shouldn’t use them to mask the bad news. They definitely don’t make up for the large losses in wildlife we’re seeing around the world. In fact, the risk here is asymmetric: growth in one wildlife population does not offset a species getting pushed to extinction. A species lost to extinction is a species lost forever. We can’t make up for this loss by simply increasing the population of something else. But we can make sure two messages are communicated at the same time. First, that we’re losing our biodiversity at a rapid rate. Second, that it’s possible to do something about it. If there was no hope of the second one being true, what would be the point of trying? If our actions really made no difference then why would governments support anymore conservation efforts? No, we need to be vocal about the positives as well as the negatives to make clear that progress is possible. And, importantly, understand what we did right so that we can do more of it. In this article I want to take a look at some of these positive trends, and better understand how we achieved them. ## Pulling animals back from the brink of extinction For anyone interested in wildlife conservation, losing a species to extinction is a tragedy. Saving a species is surely one of life’s greatest successes. Conservation efforts might have saved tens of beautiful species over the last few decades. The 12th Aichi Target was to ‘prevent extinctions of known threatened species’. We might have missed this, but efforts have not been completely in vain. In a recent study published in _Conservation Letters_, researchers estimate that between 28 and 48 bird and mammal species would have gone extinct without the conservation efforts implemented when the Convention on Biological Diversity came into force in 1993.{ref}Bolam, F. C., Mair, L., Angelico, M., Brooks, T. M., Burgman, M., Hermes, C., ... & Butchart, S. H. (2021). [How many bird and mammal extinctions has recent conservation action prevented?](https://conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/conl.12762). _Conservation Letters_, _14_(1), e12762.{/ref} 21 to 32 bird species, and 7 to 16 mammal species were pulled back from the brink of extinction. In the last decade alone (from 2010 to 2020), 9 to 18 bird, and 2 to 7 mammal extinctions were prevented. This has preserved hundreds of millions of years of evolutionary history. It prevented the loss of 120 million years of evolutionary history of birds, and 26 million years for mammals. What this means is that extinction rates over the last two decades would have been at least three to four times faster without conservation efforts. This does not mean that these species are out-of-danger. In fact, the populations of some of these species is still decreasing. We see this in the chart, which shows how the populations of these bird and mammal species that were expected to have gone extinct are changing. 16% of these bird species, and 13% of the mammal species have gone extinct in the wild, but conservation has allowed them to survive in captivity. Across the critically endangered, endangered and vulnerable categories, 53% of bird and 31% of mammal species have increasing or stable populations. This is positive, but makes clear that many of these species are still in decline. Conservation has only been able to slow these losses down. This only looks at species on the brink of extinction. Many species in serious but less-threatened categories have been prevented from moving closer to extinction. Around 52 species of mammals, birds and amphibians move one category closer to extinction every year. Without conservation, this number would be 20% higher.{ref}Hoffmann, M., Hilton-Taylor, C., Angulo, A., Böhm, M., Brooks, T. M., Butchart, S. H., ... & Veloso, A. (2010). [The impact of conservation on the status of the world’s vertebrates](https://science.sciencemag.org/content/330/6010/1503). _Science_, _330_(6010), 1503-1509.{/ref} There are more examples. Studies have shown that protected areas have had a positive impact on preserving bird species in tropical forests.{ref}Cazalis, V., Princé, K., Mihoub, J. B., Kelly, J., Butchart, S. H., & Rodrigues, A. S. (2020). [Effectiveness of protected areas in conserving tropical forest birds](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-18230-0). _Nature Communications_, _11_(1), 1-8.{/ref} These are some of the world’s most threatened ecosystems. And while the IUCN Red List usually makes for a depressing read, there are some success stories. This year the European Bison, Europe’s largest land mammals, [was moved from](https://www.iucn.org/news/species/202012/european-bison-recovering-31-species-declared-extinct-iucn-red-list) ‘Vulnerable’ to ‘Near threatened’ (meaning it’s less threatened with extinction) thanks to continued conservation efforts. We will look at more European success stories later. Friederike Bolam et al. (2021) looked at what conservation actions were key to saving the mammal and bird species deemed to be destined for extinction.{ref}Bolam, F. C., Mair, L., Angelico, M., Brooks, T. M., Burgman, M., Hermes, C., ... & Butchart, S. H. (2021). [How many bird and mammal extinctions has recent conservation action prevented?](https://conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/conl.12762). _Conservation Letters_, _14_(1), e12762.{/ref} For both birds and mammals, legal protection and the growth of protected areas was important. Protected areas are not perfect – there are countless examples of poorly managed areas where populations continue to shrink. We will look at how effective protected areas are in a **follow-up article**. But, on average, they do make a difference. Clearly these efforts were critical for species that had gone extinct in the wild. Other important factors were controlling the spread of invasive species into new environments; reintroducing old species into environments where they had been previously lost; and restoring natural habitats, such as wetlands and forests. <Image filename="Number-of-bird-and-mammal-species-saved-from-extinction-Bolam-et-al.-2020.png" alt=""/> ## Restoring wildlife populations across Europe The European Bison might steal the headlines, but there are many good news stories across Europe. Many of the drivers of biodiversity loss – deforestation, overhunting, and habitat loss – are happening in the tropics today. But these same changes also happened across Europe and North America. Only, they happened earlier – centuries ago. Europe is now trying to restore its lost wildlife and habitats through rewilding programmes. The Zoological Society of London, Birdlife International and European Bird Census Council published a report which details how these efforts are going.{ref}Ledger, S.E.H, Rutherford, C.A, Benham, C., Burfield, I.J., Deinet, S., Eaton, M., Freeman, R., Gray, C., Herrando, S., Scott-Gatty, K., Staneva, A and McRae, L., (2022) [Wildlife Comeback in Europe: Opportunities and challenges for species recovery](https://rewildingeurope.com/wildlife-comeback-report-2022/). Final report to Rewilding Europe by the Zoological Society of London, BirdLife International and the European Bird Census Council. London, UK: ZSL.{/ref} They looked at how the populations of 24 mammal and 25 of Europe’s iconic bird species had changed over the past 50 years. Most had seen an overwhelming recovery. Most species saw an increase of more than 100%. Some saw more than 1000% growth. Brown bear populations more than doubled over these 50 years. Wolverine populations doubled in the 1990s alone. The Eurasian lynx increased by 500%. Reintroduction programmes of the Eurasian beaver saw populations increase by 16,000% – a doubling or tripling every decade. What were the main drivers of this recovery? Part of Europe’s success in restoring wildlife populations in recent decades can be attributed to the fact that their development and harvesting of resources came long ago. My European ancestors had already hunted many species to extinction; expanded agricultural land into existing forest; and built cities, roads and other infrastructure that fragments natural habitats. Only in our very recent past have European countries been able to reverse these trends: reforesting; raising livestock instead of hunting; and now reducing the amount of land we use for agriculture through improved productivity. But there have also been a number of proactive interventions to restore populations. In the chart here we see the main drivers of recovery across European bird species. At the top of the list is legal protection, this includes preventing the disturbance and shooting of birds species and the collection of their eggs. Another key intervention is habitat restoration – the re-establishment of wetlands, grasslands, forests and other national habitats. Reintroduction of species has also been key. But _protecting_ existing habitats and species has been more important. After millennia of habitat loss and exploitation by humans, wildlife is coming back to Europe. Somewhat ironically, humans have played an important role in this. While most biodiversity trends point towards a barren future for the planet’s wildlife, there _are_ success stories to draw upon. These should not make us complacent, or deflect our attention from the seriousness of these losses. But I think it is important to highlight what we have achieved. Protecting the world’s wildlife is not impossible – we’ve just seen the counter-evidence to this. To commit to wider conservation efforts we need to shout more loudly about these wins. Otherwise policymakers will turn their backs on them and we will lose many beautiful species that we could and should have saved. <Chart url="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/drivers-of-recovery-in-european-bird-populations"/> | {
"data": {
"wpBlock": {
"content": "\n<p>It\u2019s hard to find good news on the state of the world\u2019s wildlife. Many predict that we\u2019re heading for a sixth mass extinction; the Living Planet Index reports a 68% average decline in wildlife populations since 1970; and we <a href=\"http://ourworldindata.org/deforestation\">continue to lose</a> the tropical habitats that support our most diverse ecosystems. The United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity set twenty targets \u2013 the <a href=\"https://www.cbd.int/sp/targets/\">Aichi Biodiversity Targets</a> \u2013 to be achieved by 2020. The world missed all of them.{ref}Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity (2020). <a href=\"https://www.cbd.int/gbo/gbo5/publication/gbo-5-en.pdf\">Global Biodiversity Outlook 5</a>. Montreal.{/ref} We didn\u2019t meet a single one.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Perhaps, then, the loss of biodiversity is unavoidable. Maybe there is nothing we can do to turn things around.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Thankfully there are signs of hope. As we will see, conservation action might have been insufficient to meet our Aichi targets, but it <em>did</em> make a difference. Tens of species were saved through these interventions. There\u2019s other evidence that protected areas have retained bird diversity in tropical ecosystems. And each year there are a number of species that move away from the extinction zone on the <a href=\"https://www.iucnredlist.org/\">IUCN Red List</a>.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>We need to make sure these stories of success are heard. Of course, we shouldn\u2019t use them to mask the bad news. They definitely don\u2019t make up for the large losses in wildlife we\u2019re seeing around the world. In fact, the risk here is asymmetric: growth in one wildlife population does not offset a species getting pushed to extinction. A species lost to extinction is a species lost forever. We can\u2019t make up for this loss by simply increasing the population of something else. But we can make sure two messages are communicated at the same time. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>First, that we\u2019re losing our biodiversity at a rapid rate. Second, that it\u2019s possible to do something about it. If there was no hope of the second one being true, what would be the point of trying? If our actions really made no difference then why would governments support anymore conservation efforts? No, we need to be vocal about the positives as well as the negatives to make clear that progress is possible. And, importantly, understand what we did right so that we can do more of it.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>In this article I want to take a look at some of these positive trends, and better understand how we achieved them.</p>\n\n\n\n<h4>Pulling animals back from the brink of extinction</h4>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column\">\n<p>For anyone interested in wildlife conservation, losing a species to extinction is a tragedy. Saving a species is surely one of life\u2019s greatest successes. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>Conservation efforts might have saved tens of beautiful species over the last few decades. The 12th Aichi Target was to \u2018prevent extinctions of known threatened species\u2019. We might have missed this, but efforts have not been completely in vain.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>In a recent study published in <em>Conservation Letters</em>, researchers estimate that between 28 and 48 bird and mammal species would have gone extinct without the conservation efforts implemented when the Convention on Biological Diversity came into force in 1993.{ref}Bolam, F. C., Mair, L., Angelico, M., Brooks, T. M., Burgman, M., Hermes, C., … & Butchart, S. H. (2021). <a href=\"https://conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/conl.12762\">How many bird and mammal extinctions has recent conservation action prevented?</a>. <em>Conservation Letters</em>, <em>14</em>(1), e12762.{/ref} 21 to 32 bird species, and 7 to 16 mammal species were pulled back from the brink of extinction. In the last decade alone (from 2010 to 2020), 9 to 18 bird, and 2 to 7 mammal extinctions were prevented. This has preserved hundreds of millions of years of evolutionary history. It prevented the loss of 120 million years of evolutionary history of birds, and 26 million years for mammals.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>What this means is that extinction rates over the last two decades would have been at least three to four times faster without conservation efforts. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>This does not mean that these species are out-of-danger. In fact, the populations of some of these species is still decreasing. We see this in the chart, which shows how the populations of these bird and mammal species that were expected to have gone extinct are changing. 16% of these bird species, and 13% of the mammal species have gone extinct in the wild, but conservation has allowed them to survive in captivity. Across the critically endangered, endangered and vulnerable categories, 53% of bird and 31% of mammal species have increasing or stable populations. This is positive, but makes clear that many of these species are still in decline. Conservation has only been able to slow these losses down.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>This only looks at species on the brink of extinction. Many species in serious but less-threatened categories have been prevented from moving closer to extinction. Around 52 species of mammals, birds and amphibians move one category closer to extinction every year. Without conservation, this number would be 20% higher.{ref}Hoffmann, M., Hilton-Taylor, C., Angulo, A., B\u00f6hm, M., Brooks, T. M., Butchart, S. H., … & Veloso, A. (2010). <a href=\"https://science.sciencemag.org/content/330/6010/1503\">The impact of conservation on the status of the world\u2019s vertebrates</a>. <em>Science</em>, <em>330</em>(6010), 1503-1509.{/ref}</p>\n\n\n\n<p>There are more examples. Studies have shown that protected areas have had a positive impact on preserving bird species in tropical forests.{ref}Cazalis, V., Princ\u00e9, K., Mihoub, J. B., Kelly, J., Butchart, S. H., & Rodrigues, A. S. (2020). <a href=\"https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-18230-0\">Effectiveness of protected areas in conserving tropical forest birds</a>. <em>Nature Communications</em>, <em>11</em>(1), 1-8.{/ref} These are some of the world\u2019s most threatened ecosystems. And while the IUCN Red List usually makes for a depressing read, there are some success stories. This year the European Bison, Europe\u2019s largest land mammals, <a href=\"https://www.iucn.org/news/species/202012/european-bison-recovering-31-species-declared-extinct-iucn-red-list\">was moved from</a> \u2018Vulnerable\u2019 to \u2018Near threatened\u2019 (meaning it\u2019s less threatened with extinction) thanks to continued conservation efforts. We will look at more European success stories later.<br><br>Friederike Bolam et al. (2021) looked at what conservation actions were key to saving the mammal and bird species deemed to be destined for extinction.{ref}Bolam, F. C., Mair, L., Angelico, M., Brooks, T. M., Burgman, M., Hermes, C., … & Butchart, S. H. (2021). <a href=\"https://conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/conl.12762\">How many bird and mammal extinctions has recent conservation action prevented?</a>. <em>Conservation Letters</em>, <em>14</em>(1), e12762.{/ref} For both birds and mammals, legal protection and the growth of protected areas was important. Protected areas are not perfect \u2013 there are countless examples of poorly managed areas where populations continue to shrink. We will look at how effective protected areas are in a <strong>follow-up article</strong>. But, on average, they do make a difference. Clearly these efforts were critical for species that had gone extinct in the wild. Other important factors were controlling the spread of invasive species into new environments; reintroducing old species into environments where they had been previously lost; and restoring natural habitats, such as wetlands and forests.</p>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"800\" height=\"502\" src=\"https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/03/Number-of-bird-and-mammal-species-saved-from-extinction-Bolam-et-al.-2020-800x502.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-41998\" srcset=\"https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/03/Number-of-bird-and-mammal-species-saved-from-extinction-Bolam-et-al.-2020-800x502.png 800w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/03/Number-of-bird-and-mammal-species-saved-from-extinction-Bolam-et-al.-2020-400x251.png 400w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/03/Number-of-bird-and-mammal-species-saved-from-extinction-Bolam-et-al.-2020-150x94.png 150w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/03/Number-of-bird-and-mammal-species-saved-from-extinction-Bolam-et-al.-2020-768x482.png 768w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/03/Number-of-bird-and-mammal-species-saved-from-extinction-Bolam-et-al.-2020-1536x964.png 1536w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2021/03/Number-of-bird-and-mammal-species-saved-from-extinction-Bolam-et-al.-2020.png 2021w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" /></figure>\n</div>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<h4>Restoring wildlife populations across Europe</h4>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column\">\n<p>The European Bison might steal the headlines, but there are many good news stories across Europe. Many of the drivers of biodiversity loss \u2013 deforestation, overhunting, and habitat loss \u2013 are happening in the tropics today. But these same changes also happened across Europe and North America. Only, they happened earlier \u2013 centuries ago. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>Europe is now trying to restore its lost wildlife and habitats through rewilding programmes. The Zoological Society of London, Birdlife International and European Bird Census Council published a report which details how these efforts are going.{ref}Ledger, S.E.H, Rutherford, C.A, Benham, C., Burfield, I.J., Deinet, S., Eaton, M., Freeman, R., Gray, C., Herrando, S., Scott-Gatty, K., Staneva, A and McRae, L., (2022) <a href=\"https://rewildingeurope.com/wildlife-comeback-report-2022/\">Wildlife Comeback in Europe: Opportunities and challenges for species recovery</a>. Final report to Rewilding Europe by the Zoological Society of London, BirdLife International and the European Bird Census Council. London, UK: ZSL.{/ref}<br><br>They looked at how the populations of 24 mammal and 25 of Europe\u2019s iconic bird species had changed over the past 50 years.\u00a0</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Most had seen an overwhelming recovery. Most species saw an increase of more than 100%. Some saw more than 1000% growth. Brown bear populations more than doubled over these 50 years. Wolverine populations doubled in the 1990s alone. The Eurasian lynx increased by 500%. Reintroduction programmes of the Eurasian beaver saw populations increase by 16,000% \u2013 a doubling or tripling every decade.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>What were the main drivers of this recovery?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Part of Europe\u2019s success in restoring wildlife populations in recent decades can be attributed to the fact that their development and harvesting of resources came long ago. My European ancestors had already hunted many species to extinction; expanded agricultural land into existing forest; and built cities, roads and other infrastructure that fragments natural habitats. Only in our very recent past have European countries been able to reverse these trends: reforesting; raising livestock instead of hunting; and now reducing the amount of land we use for agriculture through improved productivity.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But there have also been a number of proactive interventions to restore populations. In the chart here we see the main drivers of recovery across European bird species. At the top of the list is legal protection, this includes preventing the disturbance and shooting of birds species and the collection of their eggs. Another key intervention is habitat restoration \u2013 the re-establishment of wetlands, grasslands, forests and other national habitats. Reintroduction of species has also been key. But <em>protecting</em> existing habitats and species has been more important.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>After millennia of habitat loss and exploitation by humans, wildlife is coming back to Europe. Somewhat ironically, humans have played an important role in this.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>While most biodiversity trends point towards a barren future for the planet\u2019s wildlife, there <em>are</em> success stories to draw upon. These should not make us complacent, or deflect our attention from the seriousness of these losses. But I think it is important to highlight what we have achieved. Protecting the world\u2019s wildlife is not impossible \u2013 we\u2019ve just seen the counter-evidence to this. To commit to wider conservation efforts we need to shout more loudly about these wins. Otherwise policymakers will turn their backs on them and we will lose many beautiful species that we could and should have saved.</p>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column\">\n<iframe src=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/drivers-of-recovery-in-european-bird-populations\" loading=\"lazy\" style=\"width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;\"></iframe>\n</div>\n</div>\n"
}
},
"extensions": {
"debug": [
{
"type": "DEBUG_LOGS_INACTIVE",
"message": "GraphQL Debug logging is not active. To see debug logs, GRAPHQL_DEBUG must be enabled."
}
]
}
} |