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The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) is an international non-governmental organization founded in 1961 that works in the field of wilderness preservation and the reduction of human impact on the environment. As the world’s leading conservation organization, WWF works in nearly 100 countries.
More About WWF
- In 1961, a limited number of organizations around the world—such as the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) and The Conservation Foundation—were trying to meet conservation needs, but were desperately short of funds.
- The decision was made to establish the World Wildlife Fund as an international fundraising organization to work in collaboration with existing conservation groups and bring substantial financial support to the conservation movement on a worldwide scale.
- WWF works to help local communities conserve the natural resources they depend upon; transform markets and policies toward sustainability; and protect and restore species and their habitats.
- WWF connects cutting-edge conservation science with the collective power of the partners in the field, more than five million supporters globally, as well as partnerships with communities, companies, and governments.
- WWF work is focussed on 6 goals:
. Climate
. Food
. Forests
. Freshwater
. Oceans
. Wildlife
Living Planet Index
- The Living Planet Index (LPI) now tracks the abundance of almost 21,000 populations of mammals, birds, fish, reptiles and amphibians around the world.
- The building blocks for this indicator are wildlife population datasets gathered from almost 4,000 sources.
- Understanding how species populations may change in years to come is another huge challenge, and new techniques – such as predictive modelling and machine learning – are starting to help see how wildlife might respond to projected future changes in climate and land use.
- Using the data from 20,811 populations of 4,392 species, the 2020 global LPI shows an average 68% decline in monitored populations between 1970 and 2016.
- The LPI includes data for threatened and non-threatened species – if it’s monitored consistently over time, it is included.
- Species and populations in the LPI are increasing, declining or stable.
- However, the LPI doesn’t show numbers of species lost or extinctions.
Source: WWF website
