The Intergovernmental Science and Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) has submitted to UNESCO the first Global Assessment of Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, the most comprehensive study of life on Earth that has analyzed the changes that have occurred on the planet in the last five decades. The result: tremendously negative. Since 1500, 680 vertebrate species have disappeared, while one million species of animals and plants are currently threatened with extinction.

Why have we arrived at this scenario? The main culprit that has accelerated these transformations in nature is human activity, according to the report. Specifically, there are five direct drivers of these changes: the alteration of the terrestrial and marine environment due to human uses; the overexploitation of the resources available to us; the consequences of climate change on the immediate environment caused by the growing emissions of greenhouse gases; pollution itself; and finally, invasive species.

Faced with this situation, experts warn of the need to begin, urgently, a new transformation of our mode of development at all levels, a paradigm shift that, in the first instance, should be sponsored by the government, but also by citizens, who can change their consumption habits. The health of ecosystems, on which our economy, health and quality of life are based and on which other species depend, is in our hands.