WWF: Crimes against Nature 4th criminal activity in the world

APRIL 24, 2023 13:00

by LORENZO CIOTTI | VIEW 178

WWF: Crimes against Nature 4th criminal activity in the world *(Provided by Rapusia Blog)*

Crimes against nature are the fourth most profitable criminal activity in the world. The WWF has launched this worrying report, explaining how crimes against nature are preceded exclusively by drug trafficking, counterfeiting and arms smuggling.

These crimes against nature generate $280 billion in revenue annually and constitute a growing crime industry. There is no centralized database on nature crimes. Anyone who kills a protected species can clear their crime for as little as $1,000, and the penalties for crimes against wildlife are very low.

Two-thirds of the officers tasked with overseeing these crimes are volunteers.

Nature under siege: 50% of species threatened with extinction by 2099

IPBES, the highest scientific authority on the subject of biodiversity, in the Assessment Report on the Different Value and Valuation of Nature presented in Rome at the Italian headquarters of the European Parliament, launches a dangerous alarm.

As repored by the Italian news agency ANSA, the report said that nature is declining globally at rates unprecedented in history, and the rate of species extinction is accelerating. The concrete risk is that 50% could disappear by 2099.

The report said that around 500 thousand species not yet extinct, due to the destruction and degradation of the habitats available to them and to other factors related to human activities, see their chances of survival reduced in the long term.

With the world population expected to reach almost 10 billion in 2050, estimates the UN, the loss of arable land is even more worrying. For Waste Watcher International, target 12.3 of the 2030 Agenda must be achieved to reduce food waste by 50%.

Hence the need to invest in nutrition education all over the world. Average global temperatures over the past eight years have been the highest on record, and in 2022 the temperature was 1.15 degrees above the 1850-1900 average.

This is what emerges from the latest annual report of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) on the State of the climate, which once again raises the alarm for the melting of glaciers and the rise in sea levels. UNICEF recalls that around the planet, around one billion children are at very high risk from the impacts of the climate crisis.

Pollution, water scarcity and increasingly widespread and frequent extreme weather events are threatening an entire generation of children and adolescents: globally, by 2040, almost one in 4 children will live in areas with high water scarcity, in Italy estimates that in 2050 most children will be exposed to increasingly frequent heat waves.