"It's not too late": New report says 'Science of Hope' is key to stopping wildlife loss

A new report by the environmental charity World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) says that things haven't been going well for the natural world.

Using data from thousands of species, the Living Planet Report states that average wildlife populations have decreased nearly three quarters over the last 50 years.

The WWF's Chief Scientific Advisor Mike Barrett told Newsround that nature is "in big trouble" around the world.

But he says that "we have still got solutions to put it right. It's not too late".

The new report is titled 'The Science of Hope', and Mike gave Newsround a rundown of the stories behind the stats that show this hope in action.

The new report says that wildlife loss has been most felt in Latin America, and for creatures that live in places like rivers, lakes, and wetlands.

Mike says that these new findings "don't come as a surprise" but that "there's much more to the story".

In fact, Mike's first example of hope in action is close to home.

"Starting in the UK, it's only a few years since bluefin tuna had completely disappeared from our seas, and that was to do with overfishing - a global problem.

"Because of setting limits on how much bluefin tuna can be fished, there's been an amazing rebound in their population.

"You can now see bluefin tuna the size of dolphins leaping out of [the water around] UK shores."

Other success stories include wild tigers, whose numbers have almost doubled in 15 years.

Mike says that in places like India and Nepal, governments and communities have helped preserve "corridors" between different tiger habitats "to help them move safely from one area to another".

Elsewhere, greater protections of nesting sites for green sea turtles have led to them being 'downlisted' on the IUCN Red List.

This means they are not as endangered, meaning at much less risk of extinction.

But as well as "lots of different small groups of people doing amazing things" to protect nature, Mike says big changes need to happen.

For example, how we make food around the world, which Mike says often "relies on expanding into more and more land, so losing tropical forests for example - clearly not a sustainable way of producing food".

Another is "energy - the way that we generate power in our homes, for heating, for transport".

Mike says that lots of countries moving to renewable energy is a step in the right direction and that it is "happening fast".

He said: "Last year there was more solar power added globally as a new energy source than any other type of energy source."