Our dying environment:

Our nature and environment is our asset. Whether we hand it down to our next generations as a prosperous asset or as a liability lies on our shoulders.

The rich and bounteous Nature of our planet is the result of over 3.5 billion years of evolution. Now, it is increasingly being threatened by humans everyday. From the dawn of agriculture, some 10,000 years ago, through the Industrial Revolution of the past three centuries, we have reshaped our landscapes on an ever-lasting scale to such monstrous proportions that it has become almost irreversibly suicidal.

 The impacts of human activities reach into every corner of the natural world. Between one third and one half of the Earth's land surface has been substantially transformed by agriculture, urbanization, and commercial activities of various kinds; about one quarter of all bird species have been driven to extinction; and more than one half of all accessible surface water, as well as an enormous quantity of groundwater, is diverted for human uses. The consequence of this growing human domination of the planet is that no ecosystem on Earth is free from pervasive human influence. 

Half of the forests that originally covered 46% of the Earth's land surface are gone. Only one-fifth of the Earth's original forests remain pristine and undisturbed. Global forest cover has been reduced by 20 percent since pre-agricultural times, and possibly as much as 50 percent. Forest area has increased slightly since 1980 in industrial countries, but has declined by almost 10 percent in developing countries. In North America, 56% of the coastal temperate rainforests, once extending from California to Alaska, have been destroyed. Latin American Forests are being lost at alarming rates. Tropical deforestation probably exceeds 130,000 square kilometres a year. Less than 40 percent of forests globally are relatively undisturbed by human action. Rainforests cover 2% of the Earth's surface, i.e. 6% of its land mass (they originally covered at least twice that area), and house over half the plant and animal species on Earth. Rainforests are home to about half of the 5 to 10 million plant and animal species on the globe. Rainforests are being destroyed at a staggering rate. At least 50 million acres a year are lost, an area the size of England, Wales and Scotland combined.

Thousands of species of plants and animals are under increasing threat. Every day, added pressures such as loss of habitat, illegal trade, over-hunting, pollution, and the effects of climate change and economic development take their toll on the world's wildlife. Some 34,000 plant species, or 12.5 per cent of the world's flora, are under threat. Biodiversity is degraded and lost through such activities as the large-scale clearing and burning of forests, over harvesting of plants and animals, indiscriminate use of pesticides, draining and filling of wetlands, destructive fishing practices, air pollution, and the conversion of wild lands to agricultural and urban uses.