Nature
"Wildlife crime is a big business.”
"Run by dangerous international networks,
wildlife ... are trafficked ... like illegal drugs & arms.”
"Some 30,000 African elephants are slaughtered every year …
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the pace of killing is not slowing.
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Most illegal ivory goes to China."
Much of the world's wildlife is in serious trouble:
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"Starting in the 1800s, industrialization drove up extinction rates and has continued to do so."
Today, across the entire world,
(by weight)
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"there are:
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4 gigatons of animals, and
9 gigatons of plastic."
"The United States and Canada,
which are home to 760 bird species,
have lost around three billion birds."
Insects "keep ecosystems functioning."
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Pesticides kill beneficial bugs
(butterflies, bees)
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and poison the "biosphere".
Trees and oceans absorb CO2, but this bio-function is being rapidly degraded:
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"Since P. & G.’s historic shareholder vote … the company has no plans to end forest destruction."
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“The expansion of palm oil plantations [led] to significant rises in vector-borne disease infections,"
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as well as “the deforestation of Southeast Asian rainforests."
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"80% of logging [in the Amazon] is to make space for cattle ranching.
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[Brazil] ... is ... the world's largest beef producer. Demand for the meat is on the rise."
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"As [of] the 1960s, 80% of [Indonesia] was rainforest. Now, only half of the country ... is forest."
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"Since the [Myanmar] military seized control ... deforestation has burgeoned."
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Some "offsets" used for conservation are mired in controversy due to displacement of Indigenous people.
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