State of the living world · WWF/ZSL · IUCN · GFW/WRI · FAO · NOAA · Ramsar · Protected Planet
NATURE ATLAS
Data current as of August 2026 · Companion page: Carbon Atlas
What is happening to species, forests, wildlands, oceans and fresh water — what is driving it, and where protection and recovery stand. Figures reflect the latest releases of their sources as of August 2026.
START HERE
What is this page? While the Carbon Atlas tracks what we put into the atmosphere, this page tracks what is happening to the living world — biodiversity, the variety and abundance of life on Earth. Wildlife populations, forests, wetlands, coral reefs and fish stocks are the planet's life-support infrastructure: they feed us, filter water, buffer storms, pollinate crops and store carbon.
One caveat before you read: unlike emissions, nature has no single unit of measurement. The numbers here come from different instruments measuring different things — how much average wildlife populations have shrunk, how many species are at risk of extinction, hectares of forest lost, the share of reefs heat-stressed. They are shown side by side, never added together. Each chart says exactly what its number does and does not mean.
How to use it: the page runs from bad news to good — species first, then forests and wildlands, then oceans and fresh water, then the ranked list of causes, and finally where protection genuinely works. Hover over any chart for details; a glossary near the bottom decodes the jargon, and sources are listed at the bottom of the page.
The nature scorecard. Before the detail, here is the summary reading for this atlas's subject — the living world: how healthy its stocks are right now (state), which way they are moving (trend), and whether the damage is speeding up or slowing down (acceleration). The carbon balance gets its own scorecard on the Carbon Atlas.
Nature state · living systems
56 /100
Equal-weight roll-up of this atlas's 8 stock indicators — wildlife, forests, wetlands, coral, wild land, species, fish stocks and protected area (100 = healthy reference). Leave-one-out range 51–61.
Net trend · direction of travel
▼ −0.6
Worsening — mean of ordinal classes from −2 (rapidly worsening) to +2 (improving). Of 8 trend inputs: 6 deteriorating · 1 flat (fish stocks) · 1 improving (protected area).
Acceleration · is it speeding up?
Direct human pressure — deceleratingClimate-driven pressure — accelerating
Deforestation and the growth of overfishing are slowing; fire, coral bleaching and heat damage are speeding up. Net: nature is losing ground more slowly — but no global stock is yet recovering.
Method & components
State scores stocks only, each 0–100 against the stated reference below, equal-weighted — no defensible unequal weighting exists, so the weights are transparent instead. Trend classifies each input's current direction on an ordinal scale (−2 rapidly worsening · −1 worsening · 0 flat · +1 stabilizing · +2 improving), which avoids unit-choice artifacts; loss rates inform trend, not state. Acceleration is reported qualitatively by pressure type. Vintages span 2018–2026. This is a summary lens over this atlas's sourced indicators — not a measurement.
Indicator
State
Reference (=100)
Trend
2nd derivative
Wildlife populations (LPI)
27
1970 abundance
▼ worsening
no bend visible
Forest extent
89
1990 area
▼ worsening
decelerating
Wetland extent
78
1970 area
▼ worsening
steady (−0.5%/yr)
Coral cover
50
1950s cover
▼ worsening
accelerating
Land unaltered by humans
25
Pre-industrial
▼ worsening
slowing in forests, not grasslands
Species not threatened
72
All assessed species
▼ worsening
steady
Fish stocks sustainable
62
All assessed stocks
■ flat
plateaued
Protected area (30×30)
46
30% land & ocean target
▲ improving
accelerating (ocean)
The carbon balance's scorecard — atmosphere, budget and warming — lives on the companion Carbon Atlas.
Wildlife populations
−73%
Average change in monitored vertebrate populations, 1970–2020 · Living Planet Index 2024
Species at risk
~1M
Animal & plant species threatened with extinction · IPBES
Tropical primary forest lost · 2025
4.3 Mha
Million hectares — an area the size of Denmark. Down 36% from 2024's record of 6.7 Mha · Global Forest Watch
Coral reefs heat-stressed
84%
Of world reef area, hit by the 2023–25 bleaching event — the largest on record · NOAA
SPECIES DECLINE
How bad is it for wildlife? Two different lenses answer that, and they are often conflated. The Living Planet Index (left) tracks how much monitored animal populations have shrunk on average — a herd of 1,000 becoming 270 counts, even if the species survives. The IUCN Red List (right) counts how many entire species are threatened with extinction: currently 49,505 of 175,909 assessed — about 28%.
HOW TO READLeft chart: longer bars = steeper average population decline since 1970, split by region and by habitat type. Right chart: the share of each animal or plant group threatened with extinction — cycads (ancient palm-like plants) are the most endangered group on Earth. Neither number means "% of animals gone."
Living Planet Index, 1970–2020 — average population change by region & system
WWF / ZSL Living Planet Report 2024 (34,836 populations, 5,495 vertebrate species). An average of population trends — not "% of animals gone", and not extinctions.
Share of species threatened with extinction, by group
IUCN Red List v2026-1 (July 2026), best estimates. Insects have no comprehensive assessment — dragonflies & damselflies stand in. ~935 species recorded Extinct since 1500 (+81 extinct in the wild) — regarded as a severe undercount; 15 more were declared extinct in July 2026.
FORESTS & WILDLANDS
Two forest measures that shouldn't be mixed. Deforestation (left) means land permanently converted away from forest — usually to farms — as tracked by the UN's FAO: it is slowing, but still vast. Tree cover loss (right) is what satellites see disappear each year for any reason, including fire: 25.5 Mha globally in 2025, 42% of it fire. Beyond the forests: 75% of all land is significantly altered by humans, only ~23% remains as true wilderness, wetlands are down 22% since 1970 — and grasslands & wetlands are now being converted at four times the forest rate.
HOW TO READ"Mha" = million hectares; 1 Mha ≈ the area of Yellowstone plus Grand Teton. In the left chart, orange bars are forest destroyed per year and green bars are new forest growing back — the gap between them is the net loss. In the right chart, taller bars = worse years for untouched tropical rainforest ("primary" forest — the irreplaceable kind).
Deforestation is slowing — but far from stopped (Mha per year)
FAO Forest Resources Assessment 2025. Net change (after regrowth): −10.7 Mha/yr in the 1990s → −4.12 Mha/yr in 2015–2025. Forests still cover 4.14 bn ha — 32% of land — but 489 Mha net have been lost since 1990.
Tropical primary forest loss — landmark years
Global Forest Watch / Univ. of Maryland (published values; not a complete annual series). 2024's record was driven by fire; 2025 fell 36% yet remains 46% above 2015 and ~70% above the pace needed for zero deforestation by 2030.
What tropical deforestation is for
Attribution of tropical deforestation to commodities (Pendrill et al.-lineage attribution; shares of attributed loss, ~2001–2015 vintage — the standing decomposition). Of all permanent tree-cover loss 2001–2025, ~94% is agriculture (WRI/Google drivers dataset). Beef alone clears more tropical forest than palm oil, soy, wood, cocoa, coffee and rubber combined.
Beyond the forest edge
Sources: IPBES 2019 (land altered); Watson et al. (wilderness); Ramsar Global Wetland Outlook 2025 (−22% supersedes the older −35% figure; ~411 Mha lost, 0.52%/yr ongoing); Global Mangrove Watch 1996–2020; PNAS 2026 (conversion rates).
OCEANS & FRESH WATER
Fresh water is the hardest-hit realm in every dataset — rivers and lakes hold a tiny fraction of the world's water but a huge share of its endangered life. In the ocean, heat now rivals fishing as the top threat: the 2023–25 coral bleaching event (corals expelling the algae that feed them when water gets too warm) touched 84% of the world's reef area. The previous record event touched 68%.
HOW TO READLeft: the share of assessed fish stocks being caught faster than they can reproduce ("overfished") — nearly 4× worse than 1974. By volume the picture is less dire because most of what we actually land comes from well-managed stocks. Right: a scorecard of losses across ocean and freshwater ecosystems — longer bars are worse.
Marine stocks fished beyond sustainable levels
FAO SOFIA series (latest: SOFIA 2026, 2023 data). By volume the picture is better: 72.6% of landings come from sustainable stocks. Extremes: tuna ~99% of landings sustainable; Mediterranean & Black Sea majority overfished.
Ecosystem scorecards
Coral: NOAA CRW (Jun 2026), GCRMN 2020 (next global report due 2026), Eddy 2021, IPCC SR1.5. Mangroves: Global Mangrove Watch / State of the World's Mangroves 2024, IUCN 2024. Freshwater: LPR 2024; He et al. 2019; LPI migratory fishes 2024.
WHAT IS DRIVING THE LOSS
The UN's biodiversity science panel (IPBES) ranked the direct causes of nature's decline in its 2019 Global Assessment — still the standing ranking. On land the top driver is converting habitat to farmland; in the ocean, it's taking too much out. Climate change is third — but it is the fastest-rising, and unlike the others it cannot be fenced off by a protected area.
PROTECTION & RECOVERY
In 2022, nearly every country signed the Kunming–Montreal agreement, whose headline promise is 30×30: protect 30% of the world's land and 30% of its ocean by 2030. The bars show how far there is to go — coverage must roughly double on land and triple at sea in the four years remaining. The cards below are the counterweight to everything above: where conservation is funded and enforced, it measurably works.
Land & inland waters protected17.4% of 30%
Ocean protected10.0% of 30%
Bars show progress toward the 30×30 target (right edge = 30%). Protected Planet live statistics, August 2026 (ocean up from 8.4% in late 2024, helped by new large marine protected areas). Also under protection: ~20% of forests, >42% of remaining mangroves.
A note on the wins: they are proof that targeted conservation works, not that the trend has turned. Conservation since 1993 prevented an estimated 21–32 bird and 7–16 mammal extinctions — while the drivers above kept intensifying.
The variety and abundance of life — from genes to species to whole ecosystems. More variety = more resilience.
Living Planet Index (LPI)
An average of trends across ~35,000 monitored vertebrate populations since 1970. "−73%" means the average population shrank by 73% — not that 73% of animals or species are gone.
IUCN Red List
The global inventory of extinction risk. Species are assessed into categories; "threatened" bundles the three worst: Vulnerable, Endangered and Critically Endangered.
Mha (million hectares)
The unit of land loss. 1 Mha = 10,000 km² ≈ the area of Yellowstone plus Grand Teton; 4.3 Mha ≈ Denmark.
Primary forest
Old, undisturbed native forest — the richest carbon and wildlife storehouse. Once cleared, it cannot be replanted back into existence on any human timescale.
Deforestation vs tree cover loss
Deforestation = land permanently switched away from forest (FAO). Tree cover loss = any tree canopy that disappears in a year, including fire and logging that may regrow (satellites).
Coral bleaching
When water stays too warm, corals expel the algae that feed and colour them, turning white. Bleached corals can recover if heat subsides quickly — or die if it doesn't.
Overfished stock
A fish population being caught faster than it can reproduce. "Sustainable" stocks can keep yielding indefinitely at current fishing pressure.
Mangrove
Coastal forests that grow in salt water — nurseries for fish, storm barriers for coasts, and carbon vaults several times denser than rainforest.
Wetland
Marshes, swamps, peatlands, floodplains. They cover ~6% of land but support ~40% of all species and store vast carbon.
30×30
The global target agreed in 2022: protect 30% of land and 30% of ocean by 2030.
IPBES
The UN's science panel for biodiversity — nature's equivalent of the IPCC climate panel.
ABOUT THIS PROJECT
This site is compiled by an independent management consultant, formerly of Deloitte's sustainability practice, with an MBA in Corporate Sustainability and a graduate certificate in Carbon Management, previously in conservation with the Alaska Dept. of Fish & Game and a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer. The Carbon and Nature atlases put the headline numbers about the planet in one place, at full detail, with sources listed for each chart. The data comes from the organisations listed below. Corrections and suggestions welcome — more on the About page.