Humanity is rapidly destroying the natural world upon which our prosperity -- and ultimately our survival -- depends, according to a landmark UN assessment of the state of Nature released Monday.

Changes wrought by decades of pillaging and poisoning forests, oceans, soil and air threaten society "at least as much as climate change," said Robert Watson, who chaired the 132-nation meeting that validated a Summary for Policymakers forged by 450 experts.

One million animal and plant species face extinction, many within decades, they reported.

Alarmingly, the accelerating pace at which unique life-forms are disappearing -- already tens to hundreds of times faster than during the last ten million years -- could tip Earth into the first mass extinction since non-avian dinosaurs died out 66 million years ago.

In the short term, humans are not at risk, said Josef Settele, a professor at the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research in Germany and co-chair of the UN Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES).

"In the longer term, it is hard to say," he told AFP. "If humans do go extinct, Nature will find its way, it always does."

Halting and reversing these dire trends will require "transformative change" -- a sweeping overhaul of the way we produce and consume almost everything, especially food, the report concluded.

"We are eroding the very foundations of our economies, livelihoods, food security, health and quality-of-life worldwide," said Watson.

"By transformative change, we mean a fundamental, system-wide reorganisation."

The pushback from "vested interests," he added, is likely to be fierce.

Drawing from 15,000 sources and an underlying 1,800-page report, the executive summary details how our species' growing footprint and appetites have compromised the natural renewal of resources that sustain civilisation, starting with fresh water, breathable air, and productive soil.

- A vicious cycle -

An October report from the UN's climate science panel painted a similarly dire picture for global warming, and likewise highlighted the need for social transformation "on an unprecedented scale" to cap the rise in temperature at 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit).

The global thermometer has already gone up by 1C, and on current trends will rise another 3C by century's end.

Climate change and biodiversity loss, it turns out, feed off each other in a vicious cycle.

Deforestation and industrial agriculture are major drivers of species and ecosystem decline, but also account for at least a quarter of man-made greenhouse gas emissions.

Trees release planet-warming carbon dioxide when cut down, and the destruction each year of tropical forests covering an area the size of England shrinks the vegetal sponge that helps to absorb it.

Global warming, in turn, is pushing thousands of animals and plants out of their comfort zones, and intensifies the kind of heatwaves and droughts that recently fuelled unprecedented fires in Australia, Indonesia, Russia, Portugal, California and Greece.

The overlapping drivers of global warming and biodiversity loss point to shared solutions, but there is potential for policy conflict too, the new report cautioned.

Plans to green the global economy reserve a crucial role for burning biofuels and locking away the CO2 released, a technology known as BECCS.

But the huge tracts of land needed to grow energy crops on this scale -- roughly twice the size of India -- would clash with the expansion of protected areas and reforestation efforts, not to mention food production.

For the first time, the UN body has ranked the top five causes of species lost and the degradation of Nature.

- Consumer society -

By a long shot, the first two are diminished or degraded habitat, and hunting for food or trade -- often illicit -- in body parts.

All but seven percent of major marine fish stocks, for example, are in decline or exploited to the limit of sustainability despite efforts by regional management organisations to fish sustainably.

Global warming is third on the list, but is likely to move up.

"We can see the climate change signal getting stronger really, really quickly," IPBES co-chair Sandra Diaz, a professor at the National University of Cordoba in Argentina, told AFP.

Numbers four and five are pollution -- 400 million tonnes of heavy metals, toxic sludge and other waste are dumped into oceans and rivers each year -- and alien species, such as rats, mosquitoes, snakes and plants that hitch rides on ships or planes.

"There are also two big indirect drivers of biodiversity loss and climate change -- the number of people in the world and their growing ability to consume," said Watson.

The heavily negotiated text does not set benchmarks for progress or "last chance" deadlines for action, as does the 2018 climate report.

Nor is the panel mandated to make explicit policy recommendations.

But it does point unmistakably to actions needed: reduce meat consumption, halt deforestation in tropical countries, discourage luxury consumption, slash perverse subsidies, embrace the concept of a low-growth economy.

The report will "serve as a basis for redefining our objectives" ahead of a key meeting of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity in China in October 2020, said co-author Yunne Jai Shin, a scientist at the Research Institute for Development in Marseilles.

Species conservation: some success, many failures
Paris (AFP) May 6, 2019 - With a million species threatened with extinction due to mankind's destruction of the planet, according to a landmark UN report released on Monday, there have been scant conservation successes in recent years.

Some creatures once teetering on the edge of recovery, such as giant pandas and bluefin tuna, have fared fairly well, while efforts to save others, including sharks and cedars, have largely fallen short.

Here are some successes and failures in conservation efforts.

- Giant panda -

The giant panda, native to China, has been on the International Union for Conservation of Nature's (IUCN) "Red List" of endangered species for years. Determined to protect its national treasure, the Chinese government began replanting the bamboo the bears feed on exclusively and organised funding for zoos to host pandas.

The panda has become something of a totem for species preservation, instantly recognised the world over. It however remains classified as "vulnerable" with less than 2,000 thought to remain in the wild.

- Bearded vulture -

The bearded vulture, which can attain a three-metre wingspan, had almost disappeared in Europe by the start of the 20th century. But 30 years ago it became part of a reintegration programme in the mountains of France. Its population in France currently sits at around 60 couples.

- Bluefin tuna -

Bluefin tuna, a mainstay delicacy of Japanese cuisine, was decimated by decades of overfishing in the Mediterranean and Atlantic before being added to a UN protected species list.

New quotas and protection measures have allowed stocks to largely recover, though there are fears for the long-term viability of other heavily fished tunas, including big eye.

- Sehuencas water frog -

Until recently this frog, indigenous to Bolivia, was thought to be on the way to extinction with just a single known specimen, a male named Romeo.

But an expedition last year discovered a living female specimen, who was named -- you guessed it -- Juliet. It is hoped that the pair will mate and save one of the world's most imperilled species.

- Cedars -

The mighty cedar trees of Lebanon are mentioned in the Bible and have clung to the mountains along the eastern Mediterranean for centuries.

But as climate change makes water cycles less dependable and brings more pests such as insects, the "Cedars of God" are under threat like never before.

In 2012 Lebanon's agriculture ministry launched a programme to plant 40 million cedars by 2030. The tree is still classified as "vulnerable" by the IUCN.

- Corals -

Coral reefs cover less than 0.2 percent of the ocean bed but support around 30 percent of all known marine life. They are under threat from warming seas, which kill the coral and prevent reefs regenerating, as well as pollution, invasive species and tourism.

The UN's intergovernmental panel on climate change in a landmark report last October warned that just 1.5 Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) of global warming could see 70-90 percent of Earth's coral reefs vanish.

- Sharks -

Sharks have stalked the oceans for more than 400 million years but they are now under threat from an even more devastating predator -- humans.

Of the 59 species of rays and sharks evaluated so far by the IUCN, 17 are classified at risk of extinction as overfishing and habitat destruction continues apace.

- Galapagos tortoise -

When Lonesome George, a 90-year-old giant tortoise in the Galapagos Islands, died in 2012, so did his species.

The islands' giant tortoise population was ravaged by pirates and poachers in the 18th century and the creatures -- which lived to over 100 and took decades to reach maturity -- could not reproduce quick enough to save themselves.

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How to fix Nature and avoid human misery: UN report
Paris (AFP) May 3, 2019
Revamping global food production, retooling the financial sector, moving beyond GDP as a measure of progress and other "transformative changes" are needed to save Nature and ourselves, a major UN biodiversity report is set to conclude. Delegates from 130 nations wrap up week-long negotiations in Paris Saturday on the executive summary of a 1,800-page tome authored by 400 scientists, the first UN global assessment of the state of Nature - and its impact on humanity - in 15 years. The bombshell ... read more