Earth Just Lost a Tenth of its Entire Wilderness in Just 20 Years

By Ana Verayo / 1473424128
(Photo : Flickr) The Amazon rainforest already lost 30 percent of its wilderness since the 1990s.

A new study reveals how our world already lost a tenth of all its wilderness in the past 20 years. Scientists updated maps of the planet's wilderness, that includes biological and ecological landscapes that have not been disrupted by human interference, from the maps dating back to the 1990s. Their findings revealed that missing areas are now twice as large as Alaska.

According to Wildlife Conservation Society's director and co-author of the study, James Watson, if this trend continues, we risk at losing all our wild areas within 50 years. He explains, by losing 10 percent of the wilderness in just 20 years is shocking.

In this new report, the team analyzed data based on human population density in a given area along with its land use and transformation, including access to the area and electrical power infrastructures.

Researchers took into consideration all these variables to obtain the results of the degree of human impact on the planet. On a more dismal note, researchers predict that children born this decade will see all Earth's wilderness gone within their lifetime.

Apart from this, wilderness regions that have suffered the most in the last two decades are the Amazon and central Africa. The Amazon lost 30 percent of its wilderness and Central Africa by 10 percent.

This new wilderness map also reveals how current conservation efforts and initiatives such as the Paris Climate Change Agreement is not mitigating any of this wilderness decline rate. This is due to how fast lands obtain protection status and other challenges including funding and political red tape and turmoil.

According to global ecologist Greg Asner from the Carnegie Institution for Science, this new study proves that even remote wilderness are not safe from human influence.

Asner says that this new study is a warning for conservation and climate mitigation policies to recognize the issues of all of the planet's natural ecosystems and not just the areas where conservationists believe that are most threatened.

Watson adds, that international policies should aim to protect every wild area. He says, people should be able to realize that their natural heritage is disappearing in front of them, and to also think about their children by urging their political leaders to give immediate priority to these important ecological areas.

This new study is published in the journal, Current Biology.