The Scale of the Collapse
What the numbers actually show
The biological systems that sustain human civilisation are declining at rates unprecedented in recorded history. ✓ Established Fact Monitored wildlife populations have fallen by an average of 73% since 1970 [1], and the IUCN now classifies 47,187 species as threatened with extinction [3]. These are not projections — they are measurements of loss already sustained.
The 2024 Living Planet Report, produced by WWF and the Zoological Society of London, tracks 34,836 population trends across 5,495 species of mammals, birds, fish, reptiles, and amphibians [1]. The headline figure — a 73% average decline — represents the steepest recorded erosion of vertebrate life in the modern era. ✓ Established Fact This is not a marginal shift. It is a structural transformation of the planet's biological composition occurring within a single human lifetime.
The distribution of these losses is profoundly uneven. Latin America and the Caribbean have experienced a catastrophic 95% decline in monitored wildlife populations — effectively a near-total collapse of vertebrate abundance across an entire bioregion [1]. Africa follows at 76%, and Asia-Pacific at 60%. The comparatively lower declines in Europe (35%) and North America (39%) reflect not relative success, but the fact that industrialised nations had already inflicted much of their ecological damage before 1970 — the baseline itself is depleted.
The IUCN Red List — the most comprehensive inventory of the global conservation status of biological species — has assessed 169,420 species as of its 2025 update [3]. Of these, 47,187 are classified as threatened, spanning categories from Vulnerable to Critically Endangered. The aggregate Red List Index has deteriorated by more than 12% between 1993 and 2024, meaning that even as conservation efforts have expanded, the overall trajectory for assessed species has worsened. ✓ Established Fact
Among the most alarming findings is the assessment of the world's tree species. ✓ Established Fact Of 47,282 tree species evaluated, 38% are threatened with extinction — primarily from deforestation for urban development and agriculture, invasive species, and climate change [3]. Trees are not merely decorative features of landscapes — they are the structural foundation of terrestrial ecosystems, the primary carbon sinks that regulate atmospheric composition, and the habitat upon which millions of other species depend.
Current extinction rates are estimated to be 100 to 1,000 times higher than the natural background rate — the rate at which species would disappear without human influence [3]. ◈ Strong Evidence Whether this constitutes a "sixth mass extinction" remains debated among scientists, but the scale and velocity of loss are without precedent in the 65-million-year period since the asteroid impact that ended the Cretaceous. The question is not whether we are losing biodiversity — that is established beyond reasonable doubt — but whether the political and economic systems responsible can be reformed before critical thresholds are crossed.
Freshwater ecosystems have suffered the steepest declines of any habitat type, with monitored populations falling by 85% since 1970 — a collapse occurring largely out of public view. Rivers, lakes, and wetlands occupy less than 1% of Earth's surface but support approximately 10% of all known species. The loss of freshwater biodiversity directly threatens drinking water quality, fisheries, and flood regulation for billions of people.
The geographic concentration of loss deserves particular attention. The regions experiencing the most severe declines — Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa, and Southeast Asia — are precisely the regions that harbour the greatest concentrations of remaining biodiversity [1]. This is not a coincidence. These are the frontiers of agricultural expansion, resource extraction, and infrastructure development — and the places where governance capacity is often least equipped to enforce environmental protections. The biodiversity that remains is disproportionately concentrated in the places where it is most vulnerable.
The Economic Blind Spot
Nature's invisible balance sheet
The global economy depends on nature for more than half its output, yet no mainstream economic framework accounts for this dependency. ✓ Established Fact Over $44 trillion of economic value — more than 50% of global GDP — is directly dependent on natural resources and the ecosystem services they provide [5]. The economy is not adjacent to nature. It is embedded within it.
The landmark Dasgupta Review, commissioned by HM Treasury and published in 2021, fundamentally reframed the relationship between economics and biodiversity [4]. Its central finding is devastating in its simplicity: between 1992 and 2014, produced capital per person doubled and human capital per person increased by 13%, but the stock of natural capital per person declined by nearly 40%. ✓ Established Fact We have been growing richer by every conventional measure while systematically depleting the foundation upon which that wealth depends.
The World Bank estimates that ecosystem services — including pollination, water purification, carbon sequestration, soil formation, flood regulation, and disease control — generate $125-140 trillion in annual economic value [5]. This figure exceeds total global GDP, yet none of it appears in the national accounts of any country. When a forest is felled, GDP records the timber revenue as a gain; the lost carbon sequestration, watershed protection, and biodiversity habitat are recorded as nothing.
This accounting failure is not merely academic — it drives perverse decision-making at every level. A government that drains a wetland for a shopping centre records an increase in GDP. The lost flood protection, water filtration, carbon storage, and biodiversity habitat — services that the wetland provided for free — are invisible to the metrics that inform policy [4]. As Sir Partha Dasgupta observes, nature has become a "blind spot" in economics that can no longer be ignored.
Our economies, livelihoods and well-being all depend on our most precious asset: Nature. We have been depleting our natural capital at an alarming rate, and we need to recognise that we are part of Nature, not separate from it.
— Sir Partha Dasgupta, The Economics of Biodiversity: The Dasgupta Review, 2021The consequences of this blind spot are not hypothetical. The World Bank projects that a partial ecosystem collapse — a scenario involving the degradation of key ecosystem services such as wild pollination, provision of food from marine fisheries, and timber from native forests — would cost 2.3% of global GDP, or $2.7 trillion, by 2030 [5]. ◈ Strong Evidence The losses would be concentrated in low-income and lower-middle-income countries, particularly those in sub-tropical regions where economies are most directly dependent on ecosystem services. Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia would bear the heaviest burden.
The asymmetry between economic value extracted and economic value recognised creates a structural incentive to destroy nature. ✓ Established Fact Governments globally spend an estimated $4 to $6 trillion per year on subsidies that actively damage nature [4] — agricultural subsidies that incentivise monoculture over biodiversity, fossil fuel subsidies that accelerate climate change, and fishing subsidies that drive overharvesting. The market is not failing because it is unregulated. It is failing because the most valuable assets on the planet are not on its balance sheet.
The IPBES Transformative Change Assessment, published in December 2024, offers a counternarrative: immediate action on biodiversity could unlock $10 trillion in business and innovation opportunities and support 395 million jobs worldwide by 2030 [2]. ◈ Strong Evidence The economic case for conservation is not a trade-off against growth — it is, increasingly, a precondition for sustainable growth. But realising this requires what the Dasgupta Review calls a fundamental shift: replacing GDP as the primary index of progress with a measure of inclusive wealth that accounts for produced, human, and natural capital together.
Between 1992 and 2014, the global economy appeared to prosper by every conventional measure: produced capital doubled, human capital rose 13%. But natural capital per person — the forests, fisheries, soils, freshwater systems, and biodiversity upon which the other two forms of capital ultimately depend — declined by nearly 40%. The GDP figures that governments celebrated concealed a massive draw-down of the asset base. This is not growth. It is liquidation dressed as prosperity.
Pilot programmes in India, Sri Lanka, and Uganda have demonstrated that incorporating natural capital accounting into macroeconomic models improves GDP predictions, employment outcomes, and carbon projections [5]. The World Bank's Global Program on Sustainability expanded from 30 to 35 partner countries between fiscal year 2024 and 2025, with 31 countries now using natural capital data to inform investment decisions. The tools exist. The methodology exists. What remains missing is the political will to account for reality.
The Extinction Machine
Five drivers dismantling the biosphere
Biodiversity loss is not a single crisis with a single cause. It is the product of five interacting drivers, each amplifying the others: habitat destruction, overexploitation, climate change, pollution, and invasive species. ✓ Established Fact Understanding their interaction is essential to understanding why conservation interventions that address one factor often fail — the machine has five gears, and all are turning simultaneously [7].
Habitat destruction remains the primary driver of terrestrial biodiversity loss. In 2024, fires drove record-breaking tropical forest destruction, with 2.8 million hectares of Amazon primary forest burned — shattering the previous record of 1.7 million hectares set in 2016 [9]. ✓ Established Fact Total Amazon deforestation reached 1.7 million hectares across the basin — the fifth highest annual loss since 2002. The Democratic Republic of Congo, which holds 60% of the Congo Basin rainforest, saw primary forest loss spike to a record 590,000 hectares [9].
The World Resources Institute reports that tropical deforestation in 2024 was dominated by fire-driven losses in the Amazon — 2.8 million hectares burned — and record primary forest loss in the DRC at 590,000 hectares [9]. While Brazil's Amazon deforestation fell 30.6% to its lowest level since 2015 under enhanced enforcement, Bolivia's share surged to 27.3% of the basin total, suggesting displacement rather than resolution.
Overexploitation — the harvesting of species at rates faster than they can reproduce — drives loss across marine and terrestrial ecosystems alike. ✓ Established Fact In fisheries, governments provide $22 billion per year in subsidies that directly encourage overfishing, depleting stocks that 3.3 billion people depend on for protein [12]. Total fisheries and aquaculture subsidies reached $55 billion in 2023, with a significant proportion promoting unsustainable practices. The pattern is circular: subsidies enable overexploitation, overexploitation depletes stocks, depleted stocks require greater effort and further subsidies to maintain yields.
Climate change is an accelerating multiplier. ◈ Strong Evidence The Global Tipping Points Report identifies warm-water coral reefs as having already passed their tipping point at approximately 1.2°C of warming — a threshold breached with current warming at 1.4°C above pre-industrial levels [13]. The Amazon rainforest is approaching its own dieback threshold, where a combination of deforestation, fire, and drying could trigger a self-reinforcing transition from tropical forest to savannah. Under the highest-emission scenario, approximately one-third of all species face extinction [13].
Pollution — particularly from agricultural chemicals — compounds these pressures. Pesticide use has driven the documented collapse of insect populations in multiple regions, with cascading effects through food webs [14]. Nitrogen and phosphorus runoff from industrial agriculture creates dead zones in coastal waters — areas so oxygen-depleted that marine life cannot survive. The Gulf of Mexico dead zone now regularly exceeds 15,000 square kilometres. Plastic pollution has been documented in every ocean basin, from the deepest trenches to Arctic sea ice.
Invasive alien species — organisms introduced to ecosystems where they lack natural predators — represent the fifth driver, and one that is accelerating with global trade. The IUCN identifies invasive species as a primary threat to more than 40% of species on its Red List of Threatened Species [3]. Island ecosystems are particularly vulnerable: invasive predators have driven the extinction of more bird species than any other single factor.
The critical insight is that these five drivers do not operate in isolation — they interact synergistically. Climate change exacerbates habitat loss by altering fire regimes and rainfall patterns. Habitat fragmentation makes species more vulnerable to invasive competitors. Pollution weakens organisms' capacity to adapt to changing conditions. ◈ Strong Evidence The IPBES Nexus Assessment, involving 165 experts from 57 countries, concluded that biodiversity is declining at every level from global to local, with ongoing declines having "direct and dire impacts on food security, water quality and availability, health and wellbeing outcomes, and resilience to climate change" [7].
Addressing deforestation without tackling climate change leaves forests vulnerable to drought and fire. Protecting marine areas without reforming fishing subsidies allows overexploitation to continue offshore. Restricting pesticides without addressing habitat loss does not reverse insect decline. The five drivers of biodiversity loss form a mutually reinforcing system — and any strategy that addresses them in isolation will underperform. The IPBES Nexus Assessment makes this explicit: the crises of biodiversity, water, food, health, and climate are interconnected and must be governed as such.
The UK Government's National Security Assessment on Global Ecosystems, published in 2025, identified this interconnection as a direct threat to geopolitical stability [15]. The assessment concluded that there is a "realistic possibility" of early ecosystem collapses from the 2030s, with the Amazon, Congo, boreal forests, Himalayan ecosystems, and coral reefs identified as the critical systems. Collapse of any one of these systems would impair clean water provision, food production, and climate regulation — with consequences measured not in ecological metrics but in human displacement, conflict, and state fragility.
The Food Security Threat
When pollinators disappear
The connection between biodiversity and food is not abstract — it is mechanical. ✓ Established Fact Eighty-seven of the world's leading food crops depend on animal pollinators for their production, corresponding to 35% of global crop production volume [8]. When pollinators decline, food systems do not gradually adjust — they face price shocks, nutritional deficits, and cascading supply chain failures.
A 2025 study published in Nature Communications modelled the economic consequences of a wild pollinator collapse in Europe and found the results staggering: crop prices would rise by 30%, generating a global welfare loss of $729 billion — equivalent to 0.9% of global GDP and 15.6% of global agricultural production value [8]. ◈ Strong Evidence The study underscores that pollinator services are not a marginal input — they are structural to the global food system.
The human cost is already measurable. Inadequate wild pollination is contributing to approximately 500,000 early deaths annually worldwide by reducing the supply of healthy foods — particularly fruits, vegetables, nuts, and seeds that depend on insect pollination [8]. ◈ Strong Evidence Global Vitamin A availability could see an 8% reduction under current pollinator decline trajectories. These are not future risks — they are present realities masked by global supply chains that redistribute shortfalls rather than resolving them.
Inadequate wild pollination is already contributing to approximately half a million premature deaths annually by reducing the availability of nutrient-rich foods. This is not a projection for a distant future — it is happening now. The victims are overwhelmingly in low-income countries where dietary diversity is already limited and the capacity to import substitutes is minimal. Pollinator decline is a public health crisis operating through the food system.
The pollinator crisis is not limited to honeybees, which receive the majority of public attention. ✓ Established Fact Approximately 16% of vertebrate pollinators — birds and bats — and 40% of invertebrate pollinators — bees, butterflies, moths, and beetles — are at risk of extinction [8]. Wild pollinators are often more effective than managed honeybees at pollinating specific crops, and their diversity provides redundancy that protects against the failure of any single species. As pollinator diversity declines, so does the resilience of the pollination service itself.
Climate change is the most prominent threat to pollinators globally, compounding the effects of habitat destruction and pesticide exposure [8]. Rising temperatures alter the timing of flowering and pollinator emergence — when these fall out of synchrony, pollination fails even if both plants and pollinators are individually healthy. The Bumblebee Conservation Trust reported that 2024 was the worst year for bumblebees since records began in the United Kingdom, with average population declines of 22.5% across all 24 British species and some species falling by 39% [14].
The dependency is also pharmaceutical. Over 80% of registered medicines either originate from or were inspired by natural organisms [7]. Approximately 70% of all cancer drugs are natural or bioinspired products. Treatments for Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's, and malaria include chemicals first discovered in plants and fungi. ◈ Strong Evidence Current estimates suggest that the planet is losing at least one potential pharmaceutical compound of significant therapeutic value every two years to extinction. The loss is irreversible — once a species disappears, its unique biochemistry disappears with it.
About 17% of global crop production value depends directly on pollination services, and these crops constitute an even larger share — 28% — of global agricultural trade [8]. ✓ Established Fact This means that pollinator decline is not merely a local farming issue — it is a systemic risk to international food trade. Countries that depend on imports of pollinator-dependent crops — including many in the Middle East, North Africa, and parts of Asia — face supply and price risks they cannot mitigate through domestic policy alone.
The broader pattern is one of progressive simplification. Industrial agriculture has replaced diverse ecosystems with monocultures — vast expanses of single crops that are productive in the short term but ecologically fragile. Monocultures lack the pollinator habitat, pest-controlling predators, and soil microbiomes that diverse systems maintain naturally. They are dependent on chemical inputs — fertilisers to replace depleted soils, pesticides to control organisms that would be regulated by intact food webs. The system works until its biological foundations erode sufficiently that chemical substitutes can no longer compensate — and the evidence suggests that threshold is approaching.
The Silent Emergency
Insects, coral, and freshwater systems
Three categories of biodiversity loss receive disproportionately little public attention relative to their systemic importance: the collapse of insect populations, the degradation of coral reef ecosystems, and the decline of freshwater species. ✓ Established Fact Together, these represent the functional backbone of Earth's biological systems — the pollinators, nutrient cyclers, and habitat builders upon which larger, more visible species depend [14].
The insect decline documented over the past decade has been described — with justification — as an ecological emergency. ✓ Established Fact A landmark study of German nature reserves found that insect biomass declined by more than 75% between 1989 and 2016 [14]. These were protected areas — places explicitly designated for conservation — yet they experienced three-quarters losses over less than three decades. Global estimates suggest insect biomass is decreasing by 0.9% to 2.5% per year, a rate that compounds devastatingly over decades.
The pattern is consistent across taxa and regions. European butterfly numbers have declined by 50% in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Belgium since 1976 [14]. British moth species show a 54% population decrease. German macromoths have declined by 61%. ✓ Established Fact The Bumblebee Conservation Trust recorded 2024 as the worst year for bumblebees in British history, with an average 22.5% decline across all 24 species. Research projects likely extinctions of 14% to 27% of insect species by 2070 under moderate warming scenarios, rising to 23% to 31% under high emissions.
Coral reefs occupy less than 0.1% of the ocean floor but support approximately 25% of all marine species [10]. They are the rainforests of the sea — and they are dying. In November 2024, the IUCN announced at COP29 that 44% of reef-building coral species globally are at risk of extinction [10]. ✓ Established Fact NOAA confirmed 2024 as the fourth global coral bleaching event, with 84% of the world's reefs experiencing bleaching-level heat stress — an unprecedented scale that dwarfs all previous events.
The Great Barrier Reef — the largest coral ecosystem on Earth — offers a case study in accelerating decline. Research at One Tree Island found that 66% of coral colonies were bleached by February 2024, escalating to 80% by April, with 44% of bleached colonies dead by July [10]. ◈ Strong Evidence The genus Acropora — the branching corals that form the structural framework of reef habitats — experienced a 95% mortality rate. The 2024 summer's impacts reversed five years of coral cover gains in a single season.
Biodiversity is declining at every level from global to local, and across every region, with ongoing declines in nature largely as a result of human activity having direct and dire impacts on food security, water quality and availability, health and wellbeing outcomes, and resilience to climate change.
— IPBES Nexus Assessment, 165 experts from 57 countries, December 2024The Global Tipping Points Report identifies warm-water coral reefs as having already crossed their tipping point [13]. ◈ Strong Evidence The estimated threshold was 1.2°C of warming; the planet is currently at 1.4°C. This means that even under the most optimistic emission reduction scenarios, coral reefs as currently constituted will undergo fundamental transformation. Projections suggest mass coral bleaching could occur annually on most reefs worldwide by 2050, preventing recovery between events and leading to permanent ecosystem state changes.
Freshwater systems round out this silent emergency. The Living Planet Index records an 85% decline in freshwater wildlife populations since 1970 — the steepest loss of any habitat type [1]. ✓ Established Fact Rivers, lakes, and wetlands cover less than 1% of Earth's surface but support approximately 10% of all known species and provide ecosystem services — drinking water, fisheries, flood regulation — upon which billions of people depend. The IUCN assessment of 23,496 freshwater species found one-quarter threatened with extinction [3]. Dam construction, water extraction, pollution, and invasive species have transformed the world's freshwater systems beyond recognition within two generations.
The Regulatory Response
Promises, paper parks, and the finance gap
The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, adopted in December 2022, is the most ambitious multilateral agreement on biodiversity in history — with 4 goals for 2050 and 23 targets for 2030, including the landmark commitment to protect 30% of land and sea [6]. ✓ Established Fact But ambition and implementation are not the same thing — and the gap between the two is widening.
The framework's centrepiece is Target 3: the "30x30" commitment to effectively conserve and manage 30% of terrestrial, inland water, and coastal and marine areas by 2030. As of January 2025, approximately 17.6% of land and 8.2% of the ocean were designated as protected — meaning the world must nearly double its terrestrial protected areas and more than triple its marine protections in five years [11]. ⚖ Contested By December 2025, ocean protection had climbed to 9.9% — the biggest single-year jump in nearly a decade, but still far from the target.
The implementation deficit is stark. By COP16 in late 2024, only 44 of the 196 parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity had submitted new national biodiversity strategies and action plans [6]. ✓ Established Fact This is fewer than one in four signatories meeting a deadline that forms the foundation of the entire framework. Without national plans, there is no mechanism to translate global targets into local action. The pattern echoes the failure of the previous framework — the Aichi Biodiversity Targets adopted in 2010 — of which none were fully achieved by their 2020 deadline.
| Risk | Severity | Assessment |
|---|---|---|
| Finance Gap Persists Through 2030 | Annual international biodiversity funding of $1.1 billion is 82% below the $6 billion target. Current 11% growth rate would miss the 2030 goal by $4 billion — closing the gap requires 34% annual growth. | |
| National Plan Deficit Undermines Framework | Only 44 of 196 parties submitted plans by COP16. Without national strategies, the framework cannot translate into binding domestic policy — replicating the Aichi failure. | |
| Paper Parks — Protection Without Enforcement | Many existing protected areas lack effective management. Expanding coverage without resourcing enforcement risks creating "paper parks" that meet the 30% target on maps but fail to protect biodiversity in practice. | |
| Donor Concentration Creates Fragility | Five donors — Germany, the World Bank, the GEF, the EU, and the United States — provide over half of all tracked funding. Political shifts in any one donor state could destabilise global biodiversity finance. | |
| Marine Protection Lags Terrestrial | Ocean protection stands at 9.9% versus 17.6% for land. Marine ecosystems receive just 14% of biodiversity funding despite the ocean covering 71% of Earth's surface and hosting critical carbon sinks. |
The finance gap is the framework's most critical vulnerability. Annual international biodiversity funding grew to just $1.1 billion in 2024 — far short of the roughly $6 billion per year needed by 2030 [11]. ✓ Established Fact At the current growth rate of 11% per year, international funding would miss the 2030 target by $4 billion. Closing the gap would require raising the growth rate to 34% annually — a trebling of the current trajectory with no precedent in environmental finance.
The distribution of what funding exists is also problematic. Africa receives nearly half of all tracked biodiversity funding, reflecting the continent's conservation needs — but small island developing states, which face existential threats from coral reef loss and sea-level rise, receive only 4.5% [11]. Marine ecosystems receive just 14% of funding despite the ocean covering 71% of Earth's surface and hosting some of the planet's most critical carbon sinks and fisheries.
China committed $230 million to the Kunming Biodiversity Fund in May 2024, targeting projects in developing countries [6]. While symbolically important, this amount is dwarfed by the scale of the need. The framework calls for mobilising $200 billion per year for biodiversity from all sources — public and private — with developed countries committing $20 billion per year for developing countries by 2025, rising to $30 billion by 2030. ⚖ Contested Whether these financial commitments will materialise, given competing demands from climate adaptation, pandemic preparedness, and geopolitical tensions, remains genuinely uncertain.
The monitoring and accountability mechanisms built into the framework are more robust than those of its predecessor, with parties required to report progress in 2026 and 2029 [6]. But the framework lacks binding enforcement — it relies on peer pressure, public scrutiny, and the assumption that governments will honour commitments made in a diplomatic setting. The track record is not encouraging. The Aichi Targets demonstrated that without enforcement mechanisms, multilateral biodiversity agreements produce plans, not outcomes.
In 2010, the world adopted 20 biodiversity targets for 2020. By the deadline, none were fully met. Six were partially achieved. The failure was not one of ambition but of implementation — national governments lacked the funding, political will, and enforcement mechanisms to translate targets into action. The Kunming-Montreal Framework addresses some of these gaps with stronger monitoring requirements, but retains the same fundamental weakness: it is a voluntary agreement in a world where the economic incentives overwhelmingly favour exploitation over conservation.
The Subsidy Paradox
Paying to destroy what we depend on
The single most perverse feature of the global biodiversity crisis is that governments are simultaneously pledging to protect nature and subsidising its destruction at a ratio of more than 2,000 to one. ✓ Established Fact Global environmentally harmful subsidies total approximately $2.6 trillion per year [12], while international biodiversity conservation funding stands at $1.1 billion [11].
The numbers are staggering in their disparity. A 2025 study published in Ambio found that nature-negative finance flows from public and private sectors total $1.7 to $3.2 trillion annually, with indirect environmental damage estimated at $10.5 to $22.6 trillion per year [12]. ✓ Established Fact This means that for every dollar spent on biodiversity conservation internationally, approximately $2,400 flows in the opposite direction through subsidies and financial incentives that actively destroy natural systems.
The Ambio assessment of environmentally harmful subsidies identifies $2.6 trillion in annual flows that directly or indirectly damage biodiversity [12]. Agriculture, fossil fuels, fisheries, forestry, infrastructure, and mining are the primary sectors. The Dasgupta Review describes this as "paying people more to exploit Nature than to protect it" [4].
Fossil fuel subsidies are the largest category. Explicit subsidies reached $1.3 trillion in 2022, but when including the implicit subsidies of unpriced environmental costs — climate change impacts, air pollution, ecosystem degradation — the International Monetary Fund estimates the true figure at $7 trillion [12]. ✓ Established Fact These subsidies drive the climate change that is destroying coral reefs, altering fire regimes, shifting species ranges, and melting the polar ecosystems upon which Arctic biodiversity depends.
Agricultural subsidies represent the second major category. In 2024, forestry activities received $175 billion in subsidies while gross deforestation reached 6.37 million hectares [12]. ◈ Strong Evidence Agricultural subsidy structures in the European Union, the United States, China, India, and Japan overwhelmingly reward production volume over environmental stewardship — incentivising monoculture, chemical-intensive farming, and the conversion of natural habitats to cropland.
Fishing subsidies complete the triad. Governments provide fishing fleets with $22 billion per year in subsidies that directly encourage overfishing — a sum sufficient to make commercially unviable fishing operations profitable and depleted fisheries worth exploiting further [12]. ✓ Established Fact Total fisheries and aquaculture subsidies reached $55 billion in 2023. The World Trade Organization has been attempting to negotiate a comprehensive agreement on harmful fisheries subsidies for over two decades, with negotiations ongoing and incomplete.
The Case for Subsidy Reform
Redirecting even 10% of the $2.6 trillion in harmful subsidies would generate $260 billion annually for conservation — more than the entire GBF mobilisation target.
Colombia has aligned 20% of its agricultural credit portfolio with green criteria, targeting 100% by 2025-2026. Thailand halted $300 million in harmful coastal subsidies in 2025.
Many harmful subsidies are economically inefficient — they distort markets, encourage overproduction, and benefit large corporations disproportionately over smallholders.
Fossil fuel subsidy reform reduces air pollution deaths. Agricultural reform improves soil health. Fisheries reform restores stocks. The co-benefits extend far beyond biodiversity.
Target 18 of the GBF commits 196 nations to identify harmful subsidies by 2025 and reform them by 2030 — the first multilateral agreement to address the issue directly.
The Case Against Quick Reform
Hundreds of millions of people — farmers, fishers, and energy consumers — depend on current subsidies. Removal without transition support would cause immediate economic hardship.
Subsidies create concentrated beneficiaries with political power. Agricultural lobbies in the EU, US, and Japan have successfully resisted reform for decades.
Fossil fuel subsidies prevent energy poverty in many developing nations. Rapid removal without alternatives could increase inequality and political instability.
Agricultural subsidies, however distortive, maintain food production levels. Reform during a period of food price inflation carries risks that governments are unwilling to accept.
Identifying harmful subsidies is technically complex. Many are embedded in tax codes, credit systems, and regulatory frameworks that resist simple classification and reform.
The Kunming-Montreal Framework addresses the subsidy problem directly through Target 18, which commits parties to identify all environmentally harmful subsidies by 2025 and to reform them by 2030 — including by redirecting at least $500 billion per year away from nature-harmful activities [6]. ⚖ Contested The 2025 identification deadline has already passed with minimal progress. The political economy of subsidy reform — concentrated losers, diffuse beneficiaries — makes it among the most difficult policy reforms in any domain.
Some countries are nonetheless moving. Colombia achieved institutional recognition of biodiversity impacts within its agricultural credit system, with approximately 20% of FINAGRO's portfolio aligned with greener criteria by 2024 and a target of 100% by 2025-2026, representing $9.9 billion in finance [12]. Thailand halted new coastal seawall subsidies in 2025, removing over $300 million in planned subsidies linked to coastal habitat destruction. These are significant steps — but they are exceptions against a global backdrop of inaction.
The IPBES Transformative Change Assessment identifies the subsidy paradox as a symptom of deeper structural failures: the disconnection of people from nature, the inequitable concentration of power and wealth, and the prioritisation of short-term individual gains over long-term collective wellbeing [2]. ◈ Strong Evidence Delaying action on biodiversity goals by even a decade could double the cost of acting now, and delaying action on climate change adds at least $500 billion per year in additional costs. The longer reform is deferred, the more expensive and disruptive it becomes — and the less biodiversity remains to be saved.
What the Evidence Tells Us
Tipping points and the window that remains
The scientific evidence points to a narrowing window for action. ◈ Strong Evidence Multiple Earth systems are approaching or have already crossed tipping points beyond which degradation becomes self-reinforcing and irreversible [13]. The question confronting policymakers is no longer whether biodiversity loss matters, but whether the response can match the scale and urgency of the crisis before critical thresholds are permanently breached.
The Global Tipping Points Report, released in October 2025, identifies several biosphere tipping points that are either imminent or already crossed [13]. Warm-water coral reefs — supporting 25% of marine species and the livelihoods of half a billion people — have passed their tipping point at approximately 1.2°C of warming. The Amazon rainforest, which generates 20-30% of its own rainfall through transpiration, is approaching a dieback threshold where deforestation and climate change could trigger a transition from forest to degraded savannah. ◈ Strong Evidence The UK Government's National Security Assessment concludes there is a "realistic possibility" of early ecosystem collapses from the 2030s [15].
The Global Tipping Points Report identifies coral reefs as having passed their estimated tipping point of 1.2°C, with current warming at 1.4°C [13]. The Amazon rainforest, boreal forests, and Himalayan ecosystems are approaching their own thresholds. Ecological tipping points trigger cascading failures — the collapse of one system destabilises others through interconnected feedback loops.
The concept of cascading tipping points is particularly alarming. Ecological systems are interconnected — the collapse of one can destabilise others through feedback loops that amplify across scales [13]. ◈ Strong Evidence Amazon dieback would release billions of tonnes of stored carbon, accelerating global warming. Accelerated warming would further degrade coral reefs, boreal forests, and polar ecosystems. Each collapse reduces the Earth system's overall capacity to absorb shocks, making subsequent collapses more likely. The risk is not of individual ecosystem failures but of a domino effect through interconnected Earth systems.
Under the highest-emission scenario, approximately one-third of all species face extinction [13]. Even under moderate warming pathways (RCP4.5), research projects the extinction of 14% to 27% of insect species by 2070 [14]. These are not speculative scenarios — they are the output of models validated against observed trends. The trajectory is clear. What is not yet determined is the magnitude of the loss, and that depends on decisions made in the next five to ten years.
The evidence also tells us that action works. ✓ Established Fact Brazil's enhanced forest protection under President Lula da Silva reduced Amazon deforestation by 30.6% in 2024, to its lowest level since 2015 [9]. Ocean protection expanded from 8.2% to 9.9% in a single year — the largest annual increase in nearly a decade [11]. The IPBES Transformative Change Assessment identifies $10 trillion in economic opportunities and 395 million jobs from immediate biodiversity action by 2030 [2]. Conservation is not a sacrifice — it is an investment in the systems that make economic activity possible.
But the window is narrow. ✓ Established Fact The IPBES assessment concludes that delaying biodiversity action by even a decade could double the cost of acting now [2]. The Dasgupta Review's central conclusion remains unrefuted: the economy is embedded within nature, not separate from it, and any economic framework that fails to account for natural capital is operating on a false premise [4]. The 73% decline in wildlife populations, the 47,187 threatened species, the $2.6 trillion in harmful subsidies, the $4.9 billion biodiversity finance gap — these are not isolated data points. They are coordinates on a trajectory.
The biodiversity crisis is not primarily a failure of awareness, science, or even technology. It is a failure of accounting. The global economy treats nature — worth $125-140 trillion annually in ecosystem services — as having zero value, while spending $2.6 trillion per year subsidising its destruction. Conservation funding of $1.1 billion per year is not merely insufficient — it is structurally irrelevant against financial flows 2,400 times larger moving in the opposite direction. Until economic systems account for natural capital, the most ambitious conservation targets will be overwhelmed by the incentives working against them.
The evidence assembled in this report points to a single overarching conclusion: the biodiversity crisis is not a peripheral environmental concern — it is a systemic threat to food security, public health, economic stability, and geopolitical order. ✓ Established Fact Over half of global GDP depends on ecosystem services that are being degraded at unprecedented rates [5]. The political response, while improving, remains fundamentally mismatched against both the scale of the crisis and the economic forces driving it. What the evidence tells us is not that the situation is hopeless — it is that the window for effective action is measured in years, not decades, and that the cost of delay rises exponentially.
The biodiversity crisis is, at its root, an information crisis. The data exists. The science is clear. The economic case is established. What is missing is the translation of evidence into the metrics, incentives, and institutional frameworks that govern actual decision-making. The species that are disappearing will not return. The ecosystems that cross their tipping points will not recover on human timescales. The question is not whether we know enough to act — we do. The question is whether the systems responsible for acting can be reformed before the biological systems they depend on pass the point of no return.