Biodiversity levels crashing - 8th November 2021

A new study from the Natural History Museum in London suggests that levels of nature have fallen dramatically in the UK. The study shows that only about 50 percent of its former biodiversity is left. This puts it in the bottom 10 percent of countries globally.

Biodiversity is the variety of all living organisms. It's also how they work together to produce essential oxygen, food, water and other benefits such as medicines. Environmentalists say 90 percent biodiversity is the safe limit to stop disasters from happening. Currently, the world average is 75 percent.

One scientist from the Natural History Museum team says biodiversity is more than just beautiful countryside. "It's also what provides us with many of our basic needs."

The Museum has developed a special tool to calculate today's natural biodiversity percentages in different countries, and globally. The findings have been published, just before two global UN conferences: the Biodiversity Conference in China, and shortly after, the COP26 Climate conference in Scotland.

Biodiversity is reducing more rapidly than at any other time in human history. Over the last five decades, there's been an average 70 percent decrease in the populations of birds, mammals, fish, reptiles and amphibians.

According to one expert, this new information on biodiversity has come at an extremely important time. What happens at the two climate conferences will affect the next few years and will also shape the rest of the century.