A new report confirms that life on Earth is in trouble

A MILLION SPECIES of animals and plants are threatened with extinction. Three-quarters of the world’s land and two-thirds of its marine environments have been “significantly altered” by human action. Urban areas have doubled in size in just the past 30 years. More than 85% of wetlands have been lost. More than 90% of ocean fish stocks are being harvested at or above sustainable levels. These are among claims made in a report published on May 6th by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, a big international quango.The report, based on 15,000 research papers, makes grim reading. More than 40% of amphibians are threatened with extinction, as are a third of marine mammals, a third of sharks and a third of corals (a novel idea for the protection of which is described in the next story). Even 10% of the world’s insects are on the brink.