06/09/2026
Half the wildlife on Earth, gone within a single human lifetime. The figure doesn't represent the species count, but the average population decline across thousands of monitored vertebrates since the 1970s. This has led to quieter forests, thinner wild herds, and freshwater populations down over 80% on average.
The underlying driver for this is habitat loss, fragmentation, and the way our economies treat ecosystems as inputs rather than living systems. Over decades, obsession over economic growth has degraded soil organisms, pollinators, predators, and wetlands to the point of integrity loss, and thus the services they perform for us start to degrade too. Think interconnection here, none of this is separate from us.
Five previous mass extinctions unfolded over millions of years, driven by asteroids, volcanoes, ocean chemistry etc. This one is largely being driven by us, and it has taken forty years. The truth is, Guilt doesn't help here. What might help is honest grief, followed by the question of who do I want to be in this time of degradation and change? How can I show up to help? What choices can I make? What worldviews are worth shifting?
