Global wildlife populations have plunged almost 70% since 1970, says WWF

 The world's wildlife populations have declined by more than two-thirds since 1970 as forests have been cleared and oceans polluted, according to an assessment released on Thursday.

This "serious drop … tells us that nature is unraveling and the natural world is emptying," said Andrew Terry, director of conservation and policy at the Zoological Society of London (ZSL).

The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) report, which used 2018 data from ZSL on the status of 32,000 wildlife populations covering more than 5,000 species, found that population sizes had declined by 69% on average.

Deforestation, human exploitation, pollution, and climate change were the biggest drivers of the loss.