In May 2019 the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Science Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) published the most comprehensive assessment ever undertaken of the world’s biodiversity. The findings of this global synthesis of the state of nature, ecosystems and nature’s contributions to people—which draws on about 15,000 scientific and government sources as well as Indigenous knowledge—are truly shocking. The decline in nature is unprecedented, with species extinction rates accelerating to the extent that one million species are threatened with extinction, many within decades. This is more than ever before in human history. Among the threatened species are almost 33% of reef-forming corals and more than a third of all marine mammals. The report demonstrates that it is not only terrestrial environments that are being lost and severely degraded by human activity. To date, 2/3 of marine environments, from coastal areas to the deep sea, have been ‘severely altered’ by human actions.
