Thousands of fish species are facing a ‘catastrophic’ decline, threatening the health, food security and livelihoods of hundreds of millions of people around the world. New research shows that a third of all freshwater fish are now face extinction.
According to a report published Tuesday by 16 global conservation groups, 18,075 species of freshwater fish live in our oceans, accounting for more than half of the world’s total fish species and a quarter of all vertebrates on earth. It biodiversity is critical to maintaining not only the health of the planet but also the economic prosperity of communities worldwide.
About 200 million people across Asia, Africa and South America rely on freshwater fishermen for their most important protein source, researchers said in the report “The World’s Forgotten Fishes”. About one-third of people also rely on them for their work and livelihood.
Despite its importance, freshwater fish are ‘underestimated and overlooked’, researchers said – and now biodiversity in freshwater is declining by twice the rate in oceans and forests.
Eighty freshwater species are already extinct – 16 of them in 2020 alone.
SAKIS MITROLIDIS / AFP via Getty Images
“Nowhere is the world’s natural crisis more acute than in our rivers, lakes and wetlands, and the clearest indication of the damage we are causing is the rapid decline in populations of freshwater fish. This is the water version of the canary in the coal mine, and we must heed the warning, ‘said Stuart Orr of the World Wildlife Fund. “Despite its importance to local communities and indigenous peoples around the world, freshwater fish are always forgotten and not taken into account in development decisions on hydropower dams or water use. or to build on floodplains. “
Migrant species have declined by more than three-quarters over the past 50 years, while populations of larger species known as ‘megavis’ have declined by a ‘catastrophic’ 94%.
Freshwater ecosystems face a devastating combination of threats – including habitat destruction, hydropower dams, irrigation of irrigation water, various types of pollution, overfishing, the introduction of invasive species and constant climate change.
Organizations, including the World Wildlife Fund, Global Wildlife Conservation and The Nature Conservancy, have now called on governments to implement an “emergency recovery plan” to conserve freshwater biodiversity. They recommend protecting and restoring rivers, water quality and important habitats – to undo the damage caused by overfishing.
“Freshwater fish are important to human health and the freshwater ecosystems on which all humans and all life on land depend,” Orr said. “It’s time we remember that.”