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WWF LIVING PLANET REPORT 2022
from Sustainability
Living planet index: an early warning indicator
Our well-being, health and economic future are critically dependent on biodiversity and natural systems, and many indicators show that biodiversity is in decline. It is essential that we understand how and why nature is changing to alter this path. The Living Planet Index (LPI) tracks changes in the relative abundance of wild species populations over time. The global Index is constructed by calculating an average trend for tens of thousands of terrestrial, freshwater, and marine vertebrate populations from across the globe. Planet Index shows an average 69% decrease in relative abundance of monitored wildlife populations between 1970 and 2018
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Why trends in abundance are important?
The Living Planet Index tracks the abundance of populations of mammals, birds, fish, reptiles, and amphibians around the world. In 2022 the Index included almost 32,000 species populations, which is 11,000 more than in 2020, the largest increase yet in number of populations between two editions of this report. These populations, or trends in relative abundance, are important because they give a snapshot of changes in an ecosystem.
Sourcing data in languages other than English:
Global biodiversity databases such as the LPI store fewer records for countries where English is not widely spoken, which are often in the most biodiverse regions. This is partly a result of the greater accessibility of English language data sources, and because the working language of the LPI team is English. For this year’s Living Planet Report, collaborators from WWFBrazil and the University of São Paulo have searched through journals and environmental impact reports in Portuguese. Thanks to their efforts, we now have 3,269 populations for 1,002 Brazilian species (575 of which are new to the database) contributing to the LPI. The number of scientific articles on conservation in other languages has been increasing over the past few decades.
Changes in biodiversity vary in different parts of the world:
The global Living Planet Index does not give us the entire picture – there are differences in abundance trends between regions, with the largest declines in tropical areas.
