Nature

"Wildlife crime is a big business.

Run by dangerous international
networks, wildlife ... are trafficked
much like illegal drugs and arms."

"Some 30,000 African elephants are slaughtered every year ...

the pace of killing is not slowing.

Most illegal ivory goes to China."

Much of the world's wildlife is in serious trouble:

"Starting in the 1800s, industrialization drove up extinction rates and has continued to do so."

For info on marine life and oceans - see Water or

"keep ecosystems functioning."

Pesticides kill beneficial bugs, (i.e. - butterflies, bees)

and poison "the biosphere."

Today, across the entire world, "there are

9 gigatons of plastic, and 4 gigatons of animals."

which are home to 760 bird species,

have lost around three billion birds."

Trees and oceans absorb CO2 in gigantic amounts, but these bio-functions are being rapidly degraded:

"The expansion of palm oil plantations ... corresponded to significant rises in vector-borne disease infections."

"The production of palm has played an increasing ... role in the deforestation of Southeast Asian rainforests."

When forests burn it's not

just trees that suffer:

"The animals are on fire."

"Sprawling wildfires ... are producing record amounts of greenhouse gases."

"As [of] the 1960s, 80% of [Indonesia] was rainforest. Now, only half of the country ... is forest."

"Since the [Myanmar] military seized control ... deforestation has burgeoned."

Some "offsets" used for conservation of wilderness in the Third World are mired in controversy because of the displacement of Indigenous people.