Many of us may not see wildlife every day, but wildlife is integral to our lives.

An article published in the Nature Climate Change journal suggests that protecting and rewilding the African forest elephants, American bison, fish, gray wolves, musk oxen, sea otters, sharks, whales, and wildebeest would help extract 500 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere by 2100 (1).  Not too shabby, considering that these species’ value comes from their mere presence on Earth.  They don’t have to be anything but themselves to help keep the Earth balanced. 

However, we are losing animal species at an alarming rate, and the sound of the alarm continues to grow louder as time passes.  A report by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) found approximately 1 million animal and plant species are threatened with extinction, and the extinction rate is accelerating.  This is largely due to human actions. 

As wildlife populations continue to diminish, the loss of key individuals causes a cascade effect throughout the ecosystem.  After all, the ecosystem services that wildlife helps to maintain, such as clean air, carbon extraction, and water filtration, are what support us.  This is the essence of interconnection and is fundamental to life on Earth.  The question then becomes how can we prioritize wildlife the same way we prioritize ourselves?

Wildlife constitutes only 4% of all biomass on Earth.  Farmed animals account for 62% of the Earth’s biomass. (2) 50% of all land on Earth is used for agriculture.  80% of the land used for agriculture is dedicated to raising farmed animals (3). The large area required to raise farmed animals means that most of the world’s endangered and threatened species are experiencing habitat loss, leading to the degradation of ecosystems that support life on Earth (4).

Interestingly, one way to help wildlife is by reducing the consumption of animal products. Not only will you create a positive impact on the future of wildlife, but you will also support farmed animals and contribute to the well-being of our planet.

References:

1. Oppenlander, Richard, A.  Comfortably Unaware.  New York City.  Beaufort Books.  2012.

2. Ritchie, Hannah. 2018. “Distribution of mammals on Earth.” www.ourworldindata.org. https://ourworldindata.org/wild-mammals-birds-biomass

3. Ritchie, Hannah.  Roser, Max. 2019, September.  “Land Use.” Our World In Data.  https://ourworldindata.org/land-use#:~:text=If%20we%20combine%20global%20grazing,livestock%20for%20meat%20and%20dairy

4. Schmitz, O.J., Sylvén, M., Atwood, T.B. et al. 2023. “Trophic rewilding can expand natural climate solutions.” Nat. Clim. Chang. 13, 324–333. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-023-01631-6