My topic is ‘Is overpopulation a threat to wildlife?’. I’m passionate about wildlife and nature, so I’m curious to find out how having 8 billion (plus) humans on this planet affects nature. I used graphs to show how the human population has been going up and wildlife is going down, what percentage of the earth has been deforested to make more room for our growing population and to show which animals have been deadliest to humans.
Global biodiversity (total variability of life forms) was at ‘100%’ in 1970. Since then, we’ve decreased to about 34%.
Some of the worlds’ deadliest animals are named as such because we’ve been taking away their natural habitat (or been living in it); freshwater snails, for example, aren’t attacking humans because we’re part of their diet – it’s simply because we’ve been intruding in their habitat, as I’ve shown in my graphs and statistics, about 56% of the world is living in urbanized areas.
This tells us that the more humans there are on Earth, the more space we’ll need to fit everyone. This will cause even more habitat loss and the eventual collapse of the ecosystem, as many species will be extinct and the remaining species will be unable to support life & the food chain.
Deadliest animals to humans 2022 | Statista. (2022, August 3). Statista. https://www.statista.com/statistics/448169/deadliest-creatures-in-the-world-by-number-of-human-deaths/
Deforestation. (n.d.). https://www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/deforestation/
Ritchie, H. (2022, December 19). Biodiversity. Our World in Data. https://ourworldindata.org/biodiversity
State of the World’s Forests 2022: 10% of total forest area on Earth lost in 30 years. (n.d.). https://www.downtoearth.org.in/news/forests/state-of-the-world-s-forests-2022-10-of-total-forest-area-on-earth-lost-in-30-years-82658#:~:text=The%20world%20has%20lost%20420%20million%20hectares%20%28mha%29%2C,the%20World%E2%80%99s%20Forests%20%28SOFO%29%20released%20May%202%2C%202022.
The 2022 Living Planet Report. (n.d.). https://livingplanet.panda.org/en-US/
UN: How has the world’s urban population changed from 1950 to 2020? (2020a, November 4). World Economic Forum. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/11/global-continent-urban-population-urbanisation-percent/
UN: How has the world’s urban population changed from 1950 to 2020? (2020b, November 4). World Economic Forum. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/11/global-continent-urban-population-urbanisation-percent/