By Nathan Rott
That map came from USGS (click here), but, the website above is easier to use.
Human activities (click here) have caused the world's wildlife populations to plummet by more than two-thirds in the last 50 years, according to a new report from the World Wildlife Fund.
The decline is happening at an unprecedented rate, the report warns, and it threatens human life as well.
"The findings are clear," the report states. "Our relationship with nature is broken."
The Living Planet Report 2020 report drew on wildlife monitoring of more than 4,300 different vertebrate species - mammals, fish, birds and amphibians - from around the world. It found that population sizes for those monitored species declined by an average of 68 percent from 1970 to 2016.
In the American tropics, including the Caribbean and Latin America, population sizes decreased by a staggering 94 percent.
Forest clearing for agricultural space was the predominant cause of the decline, the report says, noting that one-third of the planet's land is currently being used for food production. Human-caused climate change is another growing driver....
USGS uses the idea of Protected Areas, because, there are many different departments of the federal government that uses those lands, including the military. I might add, most of that land is unusable. It isn't as though there is some great private enterprise that can spring from them. The land while precious in its use, isn't conducive to real estate development.
The wildlife that live in the USA, are occupying land that is suited for that purpose and not much else.
