The UN's devastating extinction report, explained in 5 charts... Unpacking how we got here.

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Orangutans, native to the islands of Sumatra and Borneo, are critically endangered as humans are cutting down their old-growth rainforest habitats to build palm oil plantations. Without a "transformative change" of human behavior, orangutans and over a million other species could go extinct, a new UN report warns.
Alex Schwartz
▼ We’re not going to sugarcoat it: The latest news from the United Nations is pretty dire. A summaryof a report by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) says human activity is threatening the existence of over a million plant and animal species—more than ever before in human history.
The IPBES will release a groundbreaking report later this year on their findings, which they refer to as the most “comprehensive assessment of its kind.” The full package will be some 1,500 pages long, authored by 145 experts from more than 50 countries and drawing from more than 15,000 scientific and government sources. But the summary is alarming enough on its own.
“We are eroding the very foundations of our economies, livelihoods, food security, health, and quality of life worldwide,” IPBES chair Sir Robert Watson said in a press release.
How did we get here? The report, while outlining the extent of the ecological destruction that could occur around the world, thankfully answers that question too—with lots and lots of statistics. While overwhelming, they could be the silver lining in this gloomy report. When we have a detailed diagnosis, it’s a lot easier to come up with a treatment. Let’s take a dive into the data:

There are more than 8 million species estimated on Earth, losing a million of those species would eliminate a massive chunk.
Infographic by Alex Schwartz
There are more than 8 million species estimated on Earth, though scientists discover new ones every day—we could be driving some we don’t even know about to extinction. Losing a million of those species would eliminate a massive chunk, with amphibians, insects, and non-fish reef dwellers taking the biggest hits. While climate change is playing an increasing role in all this (5 percent of species are expected to go extinct just as a result of 2˚C of warming alone), there are many activities humans engage in that the report links directly to the loss of species.

Less than 70 percent of the Earth’s forests that existed before the industrial revolution remain.
Infographic by Alex Schwartz
Forests have taken major hits, primarily from agriculture. (▪ ▪ ▪)

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