WWF called for changes to food production and investment on October 8 as its 2026 Living Planet Report recorded a 73% average decline in monitored vertebrate wildlife populations between 1970 and 2022. The global assessment links the losses to habitat destruction and other pressures, while stressing that conservation can help populations recover.
The Living Planet Index, compiled by the Zoological Society of London, draws on 35,803 population trends covering 5,790 species of mammals, birds, fish, reptiles and amphibians. WWF explains that it measures average proportional changes in monitored population sizes, rather than counting all animals on Earth. The result does not mean that 73% of individual wild animals have disappeared.
According to WWF, Latin America and the Caribbean recorded the steepest regional decline, at 95%, followed by Africa at 80% and Asia-Pacific at 49%. Across ecosystems, freshwater populations fell by an average of 85%, compared with 69% on land and 59% at sea. The organisation identifies agricultural expansion and associated habitat damage as the most frequently reported driver of biodiversity loss.
WWF cautions that successive editions of the index cannot be compared directly because the species, populations and time periods covered change. Around half of the populations in the latest dataset were stable or increasing, but the scale of losses outweighed the gains. The report therefore describes a global average, with substantial differences between individual populations and regions.
The report highlights recoveries among tigers, green sea turtles, bluefin tuna and some southern African elephant populations as evidence that sustained protection can work. WWF-UK chief executive Tanya Steele said nature loss also threatens food security, water supplies and economic resilience. WWF argues that conservation must be accompanied by changes in the activities driving environmental damage.
The organisation is calling for national food strategies, reform of agricultural subsidies and investment that restores nature. It also wants major businesses to produce credible climate and nature transition plans and supermarket supply chains to avoid deforestation. The report presents these as policy priorities for accelerating recovery, alongside cleaner energy, rather than as measures already adopted worldwide.
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