At this rate, with no forests or wildlife left, by the year 2050 we will need another planet – The National

At this rate, with no forests or wildlife left, by the year 2050 we will need another planet – The National

A century ago, there were 5 million elephants in Africa. There are only 450,000 left and may disappear during our lifetime

From the beginning of our existence, around 200,000 years ago, until 1880, our population rose to a billion people. By 2011 we were seven billion people. Now we are approaching 10 billion. Let that sink in. What previously took us a century now takes a mere decade. At this pace of growth and resource consumption, we will need another planet by 2050.

Natural disasters, such as droughts and wildfires, have an impact on animal populations, but they usually do not cause the irreversible decline that human encroachment does on wildlife habitats. The decline in the number of rhinos, elephants and other large mammals have as much to do with this encroachment as they do with, for example, poaching. A century ago, there were an estimated 5 million elephants in Africa. Today, due to poachers, ivory hunters and encroachment, there are only about 450,000 surviving elephants.

An increasing human population and a corresponding increase in human needs are causing irreversible transformation. We cut entire forests to plant palms for fuel and cooking oil. We overfish oceans that are already polluted by plastic. Animal