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These are images of our planet as captured by World Wildlife Fund filmographers. Its freshwater systems, oceans, and coral reefs, savylvanas, and grasslands. Then there are tropical forests, which cover roughly 2 billion hectares or 7.7 million square miles of land. It's a mere 3.6% of the planet's total surface area. But these green spaces which include the neotropics, the afro tropics, the Indalayan realm and Australasia harbor tens of millions of plants and animals including insects and small organisms. Tropical forests sustain half of Earth's biological diversity. They stabilize the global climate by storing massive amounts of carbon. And before you say, "What do they do for me?" Consider this. Tropical forests provide a staggering amount of
the world's health care resources and daily essentials. Take the rosy periwinkle. This flowering plant gave us vinine and vinlastine which are important cancer fighting drugs. Vincine remains a key part of treatments that have dramatically improved survival rates for children with leukemia. Then there's the coma tree. Its spark gave us quinine, a medicine that helped humanity fight malaria for centuries, saving countless lives. And believe it or not, research into the venom of a Brazilian pit viper led scientists to develop captopil, a medicine used to treat high blood pressure and heart failure. Certain wild yams contain a natural compound called destrogenine, which scientists learned to turn into steroid medicines, including cortisone and
hormones that helped make the first birth control pills possible. And from the Jabberandi plant comes pyocarpine, a medicine used to treat glaucoma by lowering pressure inside the eye. And that's just a glimpse of what nature does for us. Yet, conservation organizations report we're destroying the very systems we depend on. The World Wildlife Fund's latest living planet report reveals there's been a 73% average decline in monitored vertebrae to wildlife population sizes between the years 1917 and 2022 highlighting just how serious the damage has become. With the consequences extending to plants, too. As animals disappear, so do some of the creatures that pollinate flowers and spread seeds, threatening the survival
of the plants that depend on them. How big of a deal is the report's findings? Yeah. Um, this report really does show us that u uh, you know, wildlife populations remain under very serious pressure. You know, you have seen that the index shows us that 73% average decline in monitored wildlife populations between 1970 and 2020. So this is a really serious issue. The findings of this report are really in the same direction as other findings of other reports. For example, the red list that IUCN produces, the biodiversity inter intactness index, they all they all point to the same direction that our species are under serious pressure.
You know, I've seen you say that the window for a different future is narrowing. So for anyone who cares about the planet, I mean even for me that's a really scary thought or suggestion. What do you predict could happen if there is no collective action to transform the way we interact with nature? If we do not act as soon as we should either using whole of government approach or whole of society approach the consequences on the life support systems of nature will be really grave. You know we already seeing impacts of uh you know deteriorating climate uh and the shocks thereof on human populations on livelihoods.
Life depends a lot more on the support systems that nature provides. No doubt I'm sure you guys in the WWF have also been really concerned about the messaging here. Um us on just two degrees I feel particularly helpless when stories like this break. So I went around before this chat asking my colleagues who are from different parts of the world whether they care about nature. The main responses were that nature is pretty there is some sort of spiritual connection and a couple people talked about uh the benefits uh to humans though none could identify exactly what those benefits are. One argument though was that the media does a poor job of reporting any urgency with stories like this. Would you agree that the media has failed nature?
I would say that the media needs to do more. I wouldn't want to say the media has not failed. The media has supported uh the messaging of nature insufficiently and I think the media needs to broaden its reporting of nature uh so that we can reach many more audiences with information that equips people to understand the importance of nature. We think that one of the key areas that will lead to the survival of nature is when we are able to elevate nature in decision making not only at the individual level but at policym at government level at all of society level. We need the media reporting on issues of nature to raise the awareness and consciousness of nature in order to trigger public movements that then help us to conserve nature in
whatever space people find themselves. So I think there's a role for the media here. It has the media hasn't played it as sufficiently as we would have loved but there's an opportunity for the media to continue to play this important role. But allow me secondly to say uh here Rean that the reason maybe the media isn't taking this up very well is because of the messaging. We always coming at you with the negative message that nature is declining. Nature is declining and people sort of get apathetic about this whole line. But what we are saying in the LPR in 2026 is this that even though wildlife populations remain under pressure, serious pressure, recovery is within reach. We see windows of opportunity,
you know, we see windows of opportunity for wildlife, for wildlife recovery. We see species recovering, we see ecosystems recovering. And so for us, there's a serious problem. But we are also seeing recovery within the index which we use which we call the living planet index. 50% of the species within the living planet index are actually stable or increasing. This is the good news that the index marks because the index really is weighed down by the global declines. But there's good news there in and what we would like pointed out in the media for example is that yes the situation looks grim but there is hope. Recovery is within reach and we have the urgency as people
as organizations as institutions as individuals to exercise that urgency with science with hope to deliver and that's why the LPI is called this year science of hope. But I would argue that apathy you talked about is such a debilitating uh factor for organizations like yours. I also ask my colleagues uh whether they consider not consuming for example any animal products for a period of time to allow wildlife populations to recover just throughout two decades. Most of them said no flat out they would not consider not um consuming any animal products whether eating or using animal products. from your own research at the WF, do people empathize with nature enough to change their lifestyle?
Uh one of the bigger issues we've been campaigning for uh Reagan is the need for especially people in the western and moderniz in the western world for those people to minimize their consumption and consumption here should not just be pointed at uh you know animal protein and the many other ways of consumption. There's the problem of overconumption in the western world. You know whether it is energy, whether it is, you know, food, whatever the case might be, we see patterns of overconumption all over the western world and other parts of the world too, not just the western world. Our message is that for us to be able to cope with the impacts of n on nature and especially of climate, we will need to
address over consumption. You know, we will need to drive less, for example, to c greenhouse gas emissions coming out of transport. We will need to do less of something to address a serious problem that over consumption is creating for us with nature. So, I think the message should be over consumption its entirety and animal protein as just one component of that wider message. Well, a major weakness is implementation. Many argue that companies that harm nature get a free pass by governments to do so.
It's a question we posed to the WWF at the COP 17 biodiversity summit in Armenia. Hello. This is a question um from Rean Divine uh TRT World a Turkish broadcaster. Your report estimates that in 2024 around $7.3 trillion flowed into nature harming activities compared with just 220 billion towards protecting or restoring it. And that approximately 7.3 trillion includes approximately 4.9 trillion in private finance and 2.4 trillion in environmentally harmful public subsidies. Can you name the countries andor organizations preventing more progress on the issue? you will understand that of course WWF is not going to uh name and shame any country parties with respect to the necessary reforms that need to be
embedded into national context. So uh what is really important is as uh highlighted in the global review we see that there is little progress so far on this agenda. But there is also reason for hope because there are a number of countries that are trying to embrace this agenda and trying to advance those reforms and try to learn from each other through dialogues and a coalition that is emerging and which is going to be quite vocal here. And I think there will be some announcements uh during the second week of uh the conference of parties where we can learn from some progressive uh parties on what they are doing with um uh reforming armful subsidies. But biodiversity isn't just about the
animals and plants we see around us. It's also about the life beneath our feet. October 16th marked World Food Day with the United Nations calling for innovation to help feed a growing world while protecting the planet. But we often overlook that much of the food we eat begins with healthy well soil which is home to an extraordinary variety of organisms that help plants grow. And that soil is under increasing pressure from intensive farming, from pollution, from erosion, and of course from the climate crisis. So it basically sounds as though you're saying we need to build less buildings, um control how we grow our food, um better manage our animal agriculture. Is the answer doing all of this less
or do you see a way thought for us to continue all of these human activities but also using any innovations that we may have to somehow mitigate the effects of what's happening. Yeah. So you kind of answered it at the end. So it's it's not doing less, it's doing it smarter. So for instance on the we don't have to build less, we need to build where it's um going to have less of an impact on some of our best land. We've got arguments right now, for instance, on putting um sustainable renewable energy onto farmland. That might be okay if it's put onto very lowgrade land, but when you're taking out some of the best land and production
for that, then you've got some serious challenges. Same thing is um urban centers are expanding, you know, we're basically letting them expand where they are and they tend to be on where the land is the best. you know, perhaps you need to focus on building new urban centers away from those best areas of land. Um, and then in terms of farming systems, yeah, there's a lot of we can't do it less. There's a growing population, so we need to support that population. We can, and this was a big term a few years ago, we can possibly do more on a lower um area of land. But there is a growing movement of vegan activists who believe that we can solve quite a few of the world's problems when it comes to
emissions, when it comes to land organization simply by changing our diet. Do you agree or disagree that completely eradicating say agriculture for example can drastically reduce emissions and protect soils? Um so there are various papers that suggest this. Um I actually work at University of Aberdine. We have the Rowwood Institute here where there are food experts who look at sustainable diets. So going more vegan is certainly has um really positive impacts because it is far lower input in terms of energy, fertilizer, land, and anything else in producing a vegan diet compared to producing one that relies on meat. But there's a couple caveats to this. So
one is that there is a lot of land that won't support crop production. So that land you could argue should be rewalded or whatever else. However, the products produced from this livestock, so essentially manure, whatever else, you know, that's often used in more sustainable farming practices. It's a great carbon amendment. I know that there are farmers who have shown purely with the organic resources. So this is plant residue or whatever they produce on their farm. So without livestock whatsoever, they can kind of re recycle material and make a kind of healthy soil. But I think that's the exception rather than the rule. The other is it's a real western mindset. So um although in you know Western Europe or North
America or somewhere you can think about this vegan diet, there's other parts of the world that are essentially much of the community are pastoralists. So there are people who basically rely off livestock for their whole livelihood. They live in environments where crop production is probably incredibly limited. Um I can't remember the percentage off the top of my head, but it's in double digits the percentage of the population in the world who are pastorless farmers. So this complete shift over is um you know it's it's possibly too much. Um, I can see why you would do it on ethical reasons. It's certainly got carbon advantages, but to think of applying that to the whole world, you know, I think there are some limitations.
Your organization, the British Society of Soil Science talks about advances in science and tech that needs to be combined with farmers practical knowledge and effective policy making to uh to strengthen those agri food systems. Considering the pace of land degradation globally and it's up to like 40% according to the UN, what are we most missing from that list? I know it would probably be different depending on where you are in the world, but let's take the UK. What's missing from the list to make UK souls more productive when it comes to the science, the tech, the practical knowledge, the effective policy making? So there's um two answers to that. The first is that we have a considerable amount of knowledge already and it's not
being applied effectively. Um, so this really needs a drawing together of the expertise we have as a way to advance I think decisions on land management. Some of the options are really easy. So things like planting cover crops and agriculture for instance, it's generally a favorable practice. Generally helps build up carbon. it can give nitrogen to crops as well which is important as nitrogen fertilizers become more and more expensive. So to some extent we've got a lot of the knowledge already where we've got big gaps. Um first of all you can make small steps with the existing knowledge. You make big leaps with new understanding and that's where investment in soil science is really
important. It's where we're going to come up with big leaps and also identify some of the threats that we don't really understand yet. So a good example is microplastics. Those weren't understood at all um 15 years ago. They were discovered in marine environments and that was purely through kind of discovery basic science. And now we know that they're even more prevalent within um the soil resource. But there's more and more examples like that. Big technologies that could help restore soils as well. linking between soil science and plant science, for instance, as ways to basically harness what we get from that biological input
to make a better soil. But where we're really weak is data. And um there are great national and global data sets that are available that give you lots of information on soils, but they tend to be quite sparse. So they might be on a really rough grid in areas particularly in uh more in the developing world where they haven't had the funds to invest in a lot of soil survey. They've got data that's either inferred from other properties or um is you know quite coarse in its resolution. So it makes you can make really nice looking maps with the data we've got. The reliability of those maps is sometimes a bit suspect. And the problem is that people see this information and they assume because it looks attractive, it's giving me exactly the right answer.
Meanwhile, protecting our soil doesn't necessarily mean producing less food. In fact, a new action aid report suggests the opposite may be possible. Looking at evidence from African countries, researchers found that farming methods which work with nature rather than relying heavily on synthetic fertilizers and pesticides can improve soil health, reduce costs, and in some cases increase crop yields. It's an approach called agriology. And in Kenya, studies cited in the report found that farmers increase their profits by an average of nearly 38% after transitioning to these methods. But Action 8 says government spending continues to favor industrial farming, which raises questions about why
approaches that could benefit both farmer and the environment aren't receiving greater support. The Chenade report cites examples of crop yields doubling in Zambia and nearly tripling in Tanzania. Based on what the company's research is, is there evidence that agroecology can deliver comparable yields across Africa on a much larger scale? Yes. So uh we did a research across uh 10 countries and uh basically what we wanted to achieve is to prove that agricology is capable of addressing issues of food security and also other uh interconnected crisises solutions and basing on the results uh
we have seen uh many uh cases where uh which shows that if you apply aological principles uh in a in farming which is a great cage you are able to actually uh improve uh crop yield productivity but also even profitability. So and beyond that uh agriculture has shown that it is capable to be able to uh to address issues of u soil health uh have a good balance of ecosystems but also uh to address issues of long-term uh food security and climate resiliency. So yes the research gave us a very good positive result on that. Yeah, I say the report says it can take three to five years for farmers though to grow as much food using agricology as they do with uh conventional farming. But if farmers are
already struggling to make ends meet, how can they afford to wait that long? You think? Yes. So uh it's true that the research uh has shown that uh there will be uh there will be a transition period which is basically uh maybe uh 3 to five years to so that you can be able to match or even surpass the uh the productivity under conventional farming. It's true and uh basically that was not our fault as uh as smaller farmers that was uh an impact of applications of external synthetic inputs that were introduced by corporate in industrial culture. So um uh before we never had that challenge but now we are supposed to transit. So for me I think uh it requires support because what is happening is that
agricology does not get enough support from the public and or private financing but it is very important to make sure that we don't we no longer just address short-term issues of addressing just food uh and forget about the crime the primate planet health. So for me uh we need those two to three or four five years we need them to be able to transit and I believe that with the proper support from financing proper support in technology and proper support in marketing systems we are able to actually uh transit from industrial culture toward agriculture because it's a long-term solution for uh for food security and resilience livelihood amid these uh climate change crisises.
Yeah, I'm glad you brought up financing. As your report was talking about Zambian and uh Zimbabwean governments as well both spending huge amounts subsidizing fertilizers and seeds. Why do you think they aren't putting more money into farming methods that could be better for the soil and for the environment? So for me uh I would I'm not a spokesman for those government but I think it's a corporate capture. It's a corporate culture. Uh many you know uh these corporate people are able to do uh a lot of lobing to our governments because you know if you go across Africa we have quite uh good documents which speaks about government uh supporting agricology but unfortunately in practice many countries do the opposite. It's the same as in my country
in Tanzania where we have many documents that supports agriculture but again when it comes to subsidy you'll find that the government is subsidizing the chemical fertilizers or the chemical inputs. So for me for us this is the injustice that we are trying to confront. This is the double standard that we are trying to confront and we believe it's because of the corporate capture. At the end of the day, the government may be tempted with one huge lump sum of money from the grant or corporate from the corporate or maybe taxes so that they are able to do that. And uh the other challenge I suspect is also because of debt issues. You know many countries in Africa are inepted and for you to be able to pay those foreign debts you need
to generate foreign forexes. So you need dollar to pay those debts. So sometimes the government are uh tempted to invest in industrial agriculture which is mostly export oriented so that they can generate dollars to be able to pay those debts. So for me uh for us to be able to push the government or to for us to be able to advocate for government to finance agricultural principles which means supporting extension farming supporting uh knowledge sharing supporting seed systems indigenous seed systems. We have to address bigger socopolitical aspect on our economy. So issues of debt cancellation, issues debt reliefs and issues of promoting domestic resource mobilization because in that way our
government may be free to be able to finance agriculture but with the current context it's becoming difficult because of debts and governments are pushed to invest into industrial agriculture which is basically supporting them to be able to generate forex. And that's our show until next time. Bye.
