One million. That is the approximate number of plant and animal species facing extinction, according to the 2019 IPBES Global Assessment, more than at any prior point in human history. Figures like this one form the backdrop for the conservation work Colcom Foundation funds.

The foundation’s materials draw on several major scientific and economic reviews to explain why environmental protection demands urgent attention.

Spending Natural Capital Too Fast

The Dasgupta Review, an economic analysis commissioned by HM Treasury in 2021, found that humanity uses natural capital at a rate 1.6 times faster than Earth can regenerate it. The review also concluded that natural capital underpins all economic activity. Continued biodiversity degradation, it warned, threatens long-term human prosperity and security.

The IPBES assessment adds further detail. It found that 75% of land environments have been markedly altered by human activity, and it identified human land use change as the largest single driver of biodiversity decline worldwide.

Peer-Reviewed Research on Population

Colcom Foundation also cites a body of academic work connecting human numbers to ecological loss. Bradshaw et al. (2021), writing in Frontiers in Conservation Science, found that current human numbers and consumption rates are driving a sixth mass extinction, with vertebrate population losses accelerating since the 1970s.

Crist et al. (2022), in Science of the Total Environment, identified the scale and pace of population growth as fundamental contributors to biodiversity collapse. Per capita consumption, the authors noted, combines with population to determine total ecological impact. An earlier paper by Crist et al. (2017) in Science reached a similar conclusion.

Cafaro et al. (2022), published in Biological Conservation, went further. The authors concluded that population decrease directly facilitates ecological restoration and that smaller human populations are necessary to preserve remaining biodiversity.

Colcom Foundation uses these findings to shape an integrated grantmaking approach. Its support covers land acquisition, ecosystem restoration, aquatic habitat protection, and public education on the effects of population growth. The scale of alteration documented by IPBES, the foundation’s materials suggest, calls for sustained private philanthropy working alongside public funding. Read this article for additional information.

Learn more about Colcom Foundation on https://waterlandlife.org/land-conservation/colcom-revolving-fund-for-local-land-trusts/