- Humanity is risking its own well-being by over-harvesting and harming Nature's bounty, said a comprehensive survey today that warned animal and plant species were in decline in every world region.
Four mammoth reports that took more than 550 scientists three years to compile, warned that Asia-Pacific fish stocks could run out by 2048 and more than half of African bird and mammal species could be lost by 2100.
Up to 90 per cent of Asia-Pacific corals will suffer "severe degradation" by 2050, said the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES).
"This alarming trend endangers economies, livelihoods, food security and the quality of life of people everywhere," according to the most extensive biodiversity survey since 2005.
"We're undermining our own future well-being," added IPBES chairman Robert Watson.
The IPBES brought together experts from around the globe to assess four world regions: the Americas, Africa, Asia-Pacific, and Europe and Central Asia -- all the planet except for the Antarctic and the open seas.
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The volunteers combed through some 10,000 scientific publications.
After days of intense word-by-word negotiations, envoys from the IPBES' 129 member countries approved summaries of the four reports, which will guide governments in policymaking.
The texts make for grim reading.
Unless humanity reverses its unsustainable use of Nature, we risk "not only the future we want, but even the lives we currently lead," said Watson.
"If we continue the way we are... the sixth mass extinction, the first one ever caused by humans will continue," he told AFP.
Scientists say mankind's voracious consumption of biodiversity has unleashed the first mass species die-off since the demise of the dinosaurs -- only the sixth on our planet in half-a-billion years.
Two species of vertebrate -- animals with a backbone -- have gone extinct every year on average for the past century.
Just this week, the death of Sudan -- the world's last northern white rhino male -- served as a stark reminder of the stakes.
For the Americas, the survey warned that species populations -- already 31 per cent smaller than when the first European settlers arrived -- will have shrunk by about 40 per cent by 2050.
An estimated 500,000 square kilometres of African land is estimated to be degraded, added the assessment. As the continent's population doubles to 2.5 billion by 2050, further pressure will be brought to bear.
The Asia-Pacific region's biodiversity faces "unprecedented threats", said the IPBES reports, "from extreme weather events and sea level rise, to invasive alien species, agricultural intensification and increasing waste and pollution."
"Climate change affects biodiversity, changes in our natural vegetation affects climate change. And both of them, if we don't do this correctly, will undermine many of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals: clean water for everyone, food security for people, energy security, human security, equity."