The world has lost a tenth of all its wilderness in the past two decades

Posted by Jeff on Sep 9, 2016 @ 6:56 am in Conservation | 0 comments | Last modified: September 8, 2016

Wilderness areas on Earth have experienced alarming losses in the past two decades, a new study suggests. By comparing global maps from the present day and the early 1990s, researchers have concluded that a 10th of all the world’s wilderness has been lost in just 20 years.

The study, published in the journal Current Biology, finds that just over 30 million square kilometers (or 11.5 million square miles) of wilderness remains on Earth, composing nearly a quarter of the planet’s terrestrial area. On the other hand, 3.3 million square kilometers have been lost since the early 1990s.

The losses were more pronounced in some areas than in others. South America lost nearly 30 percent of its wilderness area, and Africa lost about 14 percent. Overall, most of the remaining wilderness is concentrated in North America, North Asia, North Africa and Australia, the researchers note.

“Wilderness was defined as any area on Earth which didn’t have a human footprint,” explained James Watson, an associate professor at the University of Queensland, director of science and research at the Wildlife Conservation Society and the new study’s lead author.

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