Conservation efforts have prevented the extinction of 32 bird species and 16 mammal species since 1993, according to the newly published Living Planet Report, which strikes a markedly more hopeful tone than previous editions.
The report, published every two years to assess the health of the natural world, finds that populations of wild tigers, elephants and sea otters are stable or growing, although it warns that biodiversity continues to be pummelled in many areas.
Writing in the Guardian, science writer Helen Pilcher said the 2024 edition of the report had made for gloomy reading, showing that global wildlife populations had plummeted by 73% in 50 years and that ecosystems were being pushed towards collapse. She said the latest edition contained a “plot twist”.
According to the report, the energy sector – historically responsible for about 75% of global greenhouse gas emissions – has passed a positive tipping point, with the transition to renewables snowballing and coal use declining in many wealthy countries.
The findings have led the report to be titled The Science of Hope.
Pilcher writes that the report draws on a “geeky kind of hope” rooted in psychological research. The American psychologist Charles “Rick” Snyder, she notes, spent decades studying hope and defined it as beginning with a goal but also requiring pathways – ideas about how to get there – and agency, the belief that you can make a difference. The Living Planet Report adds a further ingredient: resilience, the capacity to keep going when progress stalls.
She points to New Zealand’s kakapo, described as the world’s fattest, greenest and least-able-to-fly parrot, as an illustration. When non-native predators drove the species to the brink of extinction, conservationists moved the remaining birds to predator-free islands in the mid-1990s. When recovery was slow, they changed tack, experimenting with hand-rearing, foster mothers and artificial insemination, fitting the birds with smart transmitters and monitoring them almost obsessively. The genomes of every living bird have now been sequenced to inform decisions about which birds should breed.
In 1995 there were just 51 kakapo. Today there are 324, a remarkable turnaround for such a slow-breeding bird. Conservation plans are still evolving and the species is not out of the woods yet, Pilcher writes, but it now has a fighting chance.
She distinguishes real hope from optimism, wishful thinking and “hopium”, arguing that real hope leaves room for uncertainty and failure but refuses to believe there is nothing left to do. “That’s why the opposite of hope isn’t despair. It’s inaction,” she writes.
A 2023 meta-analysis, she notes, found that people who felt hopeful about their ability to make a difference were more likely to engage with the climate crisis – from seeking information and supporting climate policies to taking everyday action to reduce their environmental impact. Those whose hope rested on the belief that the climate crisis was not really a problem were less likely to engage.
Pilcher criticises the Starmer government’s decision not to publish the full national security assessment on global biodiversity loss. The public has since seen an abridged 14-page version, but she argues the detail likely remains hidden. Produced by the Joint Intelligence Committee, the assessment asks what ecosystem collapse would mean for the UK. The answer, she says, is bleak: threats to national security and prosperity, havoc with food and water supplies, a surge in irregular migration and greater geopolitical instability worldwide.
She argues that governments must be honest about the scale of the challenge. “When they withhold information, they don’t just rob us of knowledge. They also rob us of hope,” she writes.
Helen Pilcher is a science writer and the author of Life Changing: How Humans Are Altering Life on Earth and This Book May Cause Side Effects.
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