(ANSA) - ROME, OCTOBER 13 - The populations of mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles and fish have dropped on average by 69% since 1970 in the world.
And in Latin America and the Caribbean, wildlife loss has reached 94%.
The WWF Living Planet Report (Lpr) 2022 monitors nearly 32,000 populations of 5,230 vertebrate species and launches an appeal for the COP15 of December: "We expect an ambitious agreement" capable of reversing the loss of biodiversity.
"A double emergency - climate change and the loss of biodiversity - threatens the well-being of current and future generations," said the director general of the WWF, MarcoLambertini.
"The WWF is extremely worried by these new data - adds Lambertini - which show a devastating decline in wildlife populations, particularly in tropical regions which are home to some of the richest biodiversity areas in the world".
Among the species monitored by the Livingplanet report are the pink river dolphins of the Amazon, whose populations collapsed by 65% between 1994 and 2016 in the Brazilian Mamirauá Reserve;
eastern lowland gorillas, whose numbers have experienced an estimated 80% decline in Kahuzi-Biega National Park in Congo between 1994 and 2019;
and sea lion cubs from southern and western Australia, whose numbers fell by two-thirds between 1977 and 2019. Overall, as a species group, the largest reduction is in the populations of
freshwater monitored, decreased on average by 83% due to habitat loss and barriers to migration routes.
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