They warn, however, that things need to move fast if we are going to save ecosystems crucial to the survival of both animals and humans.
While a steady release of studies continue to expose the sorry state of affairs, the ecological and economic benefits of maintaining healthy rivers are increasingly clear, scientists say, as are the solutions for how to do it. As for river protection, it has long been seen as part of terrestrial protection protect the land and you’ll protect the river that runs through it, the thinking has been, even though overwhelming evidence suggests that such an approach generally does not work.īut now there are signs of change, with freshwater issues becoming more prominently featured on the conservation agenda. Yet it’s a crisis that has received far less attention than other environmental emergencies-like deforestation or plastic pollution-despite human reliance on freshwater systems for drinking water, food, and sanitation. Freshwater vertebrate populations have declined by 86 percent since 1970-twice the rate experienced within terrestrial or marine ecosystems-and almost a third of freshwater fish species are now threatened with extinction. There are more kinds of freshwater fish- 18,075 and counting-than there are fish species living in the oceans and seas. The result, as laid out this week in a report by 16 conservation organizations, is that freshwater ecosystems have become the most degraded in the world, with fish populations pushed to the brink.