BBC NEWS | UK | Wildlife populations ‘plummeting’

• Between a quarter and a third of the world’s wildlife has been lost since 1970, according to data compiled by the Zoological Society of London.

  Populations of land-based species fell by 25%, marine by 28% and freshwater by 29%, it says.

  Humans are wiping out about 1% of all other species every year, and one of the "great extinction episodes" in the Earth’s history is under way, it says.

  Pollution, farming and urban expansion, over-fishing and hunting are blamed.

• The charity also warned that a failure to stop biodiversity loss would have a direct impact on humans.

  Director general James Leape said: "Reduced biodiversity means millions of people face a future where food supplies are more vulnerable to pests and disease and where water is in irregular or short supply.

  "No-one can escape the impact of biodiversity loss because reduced global diversity translates quite clearly into fewer new medicines, greater vulnerability to natural disasters and greater effects from global warming."