Defaunation

Defaunation is the global, local, or functional extinction of animal populations or species from ecological communities.^[4] The growth of the human population, combined with advances in harvesting technologies, has led to more intense and efficient exploitation of the environment.^[5] This has resulted in the depletion of large vertebrates from ecological communities, creating what has been termed "empty forest".^[6][5][7] Defaunation differs from extinction; it includes both the disappearance of species and declines in abundance.^[8] Defaunation effects were first implied at the Symposium of Plant-Animal Interactions at the University of Campinas, Brazil in 1988 in the context of Neotropical forests.^[9] Since then, the term has gained broader usage in conservation biology as a global phenomenon.^[4][9]

It is estimated that more than 50 percent of all wildlife has been lost in the last 40 years.^[10] In 2016, it was estimated that by 2020, 68% of the world's wildlife would be lost.^[11] In South America, there is believed to be a 70 percent loss.^[12] A 2021 study found that only around 3% of the planet's terrestrial surface is ecologically and faunally intact, with healthy populations of native animal species and little to no human footprint.^[13][14]

In November 2017, over 15,000 scientists around the world issued a second warning to humanity, which, among other things, urged for the development and implementation of policies to halt "defaunation, the poaching crisis, and the exploitation and trade of threatened species."^[15]