A 73% average decline in wildlife populations: an overview of the 2026 Living Planet Index report

The 2026 Living Planet Index report is published today.

2026 年地球生命力指数报告今天发布。

As with previous editions, it makes for a depressing read (despite this year’s title being about the “Science of Hope”).

与之前的版本一样，它读起来令人沮丧（尽管今年的标题是关于“希望的科学”）。

1 The headline is a 73% average decline in wildlife populations since 1970.

1 标题是自 1970 年以来野生动物数量平均下降了 73%。

While these trends are extremely worrying, the numbers presented in the Living Planet Index (LPI) report are often misunderstood or misreported.

尽管这些趋势极其令人担忧，但地球生命力指数 (LPI) 报告中提供的数字经常被误解或误报。

In this article, I give a short overview of what these numbers mean — and don’t mean — and what some of the data underneath the headline figure shows.

在本文中，我简要概述了这些数字的含义（和不含义）以及标题图下方的一些数据所显示的内容。

We’ve written about the LPI several times before, including more technical texts that explain how it should be interpreted.

我们之前曾多次撰写有关 LPI 的文章，其中包括更多解释应如何解释它的技术文本。

I’ll link to those later, if you want to dig deeper.

如果你想深入挖掘，我稍后会链接到这些内容。

The headline figure from the 2026 update of the LPI is that studied wildlife populations declined by an average of 73% from 1970 through 2022.

2026 年 LPI 更新的主要数据是，从 1970 年到 2022 年，研究的野生动物数量平均下降了 73%。

You can see this decline in the chart below.

您可以在下图中看到这种下降。

This covers mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish; it doesn’t yet include invertebrates or plants.

这包括哺乳动物、鸟类、爬行动物、两栖动物和鱼类；它还不包括无脊椎动物或植物。

First, let’s clarify what this doesn’t mean.

首先，让我们澄清一下这意味着什么。

It doesn’t tell us anything about:

它没有告诉我们任何关于：

The authors of the LPI go to great lengths to explain this.

LPI 的作者竭尽全力解释了这一点。

Yet, there is inevitably a long list of headlines claiming that we’ve “lost 73% of wildlife”, “73% of species have gone extinct”, or “73% of species are declining”.

然而，不可避免地会有一长串头条新闻声称我们“失去了 73% 的野生动物”、“73% 的物种已经灭绝”或“73% 的物种正在减少”。

All of these are incorrect.

所有这些都是不正确的。

Across the 35,803 wildlife populations studied, the average decline was 73%.

在研究的 35,803 个野生动物种群中，平均下降了 73%。

As we’ll see later, this doesn’t mean 73% of populations are in decline; in fact, around half of the studied populations were in decline, while half were either increasing or stable.

正如我们稍后将看到的，这并不意味着 73% 的人口正在减少；而是意味着 73% 的人口正在减少。事实上，大约一半的研究人口正在减少，而一半则在增加或稳定。

We go into how the LPI is calculated in a dedicated article .

我们将在专门的文章中探讨 LPI 的计算方法。

But as a summary, researchers collect data on the change in wildlife numbers across tens of thousands of populations.

但总的来说，研究人员收集了数以万计的野生动物数量变化的数据。

While the data is measured relative to 1970, very few populations have data stretching back this far.

虽然这些数据是相对于 1970 年测量的，但很少有人拥有可追溯至今的数据。

Many populations only have data for much shorter and sparser timelines.

许多人群只拥有更短、更稀疏的时间线的数据。

For every population, the change in numbers over time is calculated, giving a rate of change.

对于每个种群，都会计算数量随时间的变化，给出变化率。

It can be positive, negative, or zero.

它可以是正数、负数或零。

To obtain the final LPI number, researchers take the geometric mean of the rates of change across all these populations.

为了获得最终的 LPI 数字，研究人员采用所有这些人群的变化率的几何平均值。

They also provide different weights to different populations, which affects the final result.

它们还为不同的人群提供不同的权重，这会影响最终结果。

Let’s compare the latest results to the two previous updates.

让我们将最新结果与之前的两次更新进行比较。

The 2022 Living Planet Index reported an average decline of 69% since 1970.

2022 年地球生命力指数自 1970 年以来平均下降了 69%。

In 2024, it reported a 73% decline.

2024 年，该数字下降了 73%。

And this latest report finds the same: 73%.

最新报告也得出同样的结论：73%。

From this, you might assume that wildlife populations dropped by four percentage points between the 2022 and 2024 editions, and nothing has changed since then.

由此，您可能会假设野生动物数量在 2022 年和 2024 年版本之间下降了四个百分点，自那以后没有任何变化。

But that’s not the case.

但事实并非如此。

Almost none of this change has happened in the last few years, and the new LPIs should not be seen as simple extensions of the previous ones.

过去几年几乎没有发生过任何变化，新的 LPI 不应被视为先前 LPI 的简单扩展。

Instead, the entire trend line for the LPI has shifted as the project has gained access to data from more populations and species, and the types of populations included have changed.

相反，随着该项目获得了更多种群和物种的数据，并且所包含的种群类型发生了变化，LPI 的整个趋势线已经发生了变化。

Since the last report, the number of populations in the LPI increased by around 1,000 (a 3% increase), and the number of species by about 300 (a 5% increase).

自上次报告以来，LPI 中的种群数量增加了约 1,000 个（增加了 3%），物种数量增加了约 300 个（增加了 5%）。

In this particular release, the number of populations and species from Africa increased substantially.

在这次特别发布中，来自非洲的种群和物种数量大幅增加。

The number of populations increased by 14%, and the number of species by 38%.

种群数量增加了14%，物种数量增加了38%。

This was a deliberate effort to increase data coverage in this region, as it had been so underrepresented in previous reports.

这是为了增加该地区的数据覆盖范围而特意做出的努力，因为该地区在之前的报告中代表性不足。

The chart below compares the LPI for 2022, 2024, and 2026 across different regions.

下图比较了不同地区 2022 年、2024 年和 2026 年的 LPI。

You can see that the whole lines have shifted, rather than things changing dramatically in only the last four years.

你可以看到整个路线已经发生了变化，而不是仅仅在过去四年里发生了巨大的变化。

We send two regular newsletters so you can stay up to date on our work and receive curated highlights from across Our World in Data.

我们定期发送两份时事通讯，以便您及时了解我们的工作并接收来自“我们的数据世界”的精选亮点。

When you hear an average decline of 73%, you’d probably imagine that most of the world’s studied wildlife populations are in decline.

当您听到平均下降 73% 时，您可能会认为世界上大多数研究的野生动物种群都在下降。

But when we look at how many populations are increasing, stable, or decreasing, this isn’t the case.

但当我们观察有多少人口在增加、稳定或减少时，情况并非如此。

Almost as many populations are increasing as decreasing.

人口增加的数量几乎与人口减少的数量一样多。

Across the entire dataset, exactly 50% of populations were in decline, 43% were increasing, and the remaining 7% were stable.

在整个数据集中，恰好有 50% 的人口在减少，43% 的人口在增加，其余 7% 的人口保持稳定。

2

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In the chart, we can see the share of populations in the LPI that have trended in a given direction for different taxonomic groups .

在图表中，我们可以看到 LPI 中不同分类群朝着给定方向趋势的种群比例。

What you’ll notice is that around half of wildlife populations have declined in numbers.

您会注意到，大约一半的野生动物数量已经减少。

The rest were either increasing or stable.

其余的则要么增加，要么稳定。

So, not all populations are struggling.

因此，并非所有人口都在挣扎。

This is not to dismiss the steep decline many populations are seeing.

这并不是要忽视许多人口正在经历的急剧下降。

Instead, it’s useful to know this so we can direct resources more efficiently to the areas and populations that need them most.

相反，了解这一点很有用，这样我们就可以更有效地将资源分配给最需要的地区和人群。

It’s more effective to target restorative and protective efforts to populations in serious trouble than to assume that all populations are struggling.

针对陷入严重困境的人群开展恢复和保护工作比假设所有人群都在苦苦挣扎更为有效。

If some populations are doing well and others are doing very poorly, we want to know why, so we can understand it and work out how to stop it.

如果一些人群表现良好而另一些人群表现很差，我们想知道原因，以便我们能够理解它并找出阻止这种情况的方法。

The Living Planet Index is the biodiversity metric that always claims the headlines.

地球生命力指数是经常成为头条新闻的生物多样性指标。

It’s often misinterpreted.

它经常被误解。

How should we understand it?

我们应该如何理解呢？

The Living Planet Index reports an average decline of 73% across studied animal populations globally.

地球生命力指数报告称，全球研究的动物数量平均下降了 73%。

But how does this vary by region?

但这因地区而异？

Beneath the popular index, the Living Planet database helps us understand where and what animals are deeply threatened, and what animals are thriving.

在流行的指数之下，生命星球数据库帮助我们了解哪些动物受到严重威胁以及哪些动物正在蓬勃发展。

WWF (2026) Living Planet Report 2026 – The Science of Hope.

世界自然基金会 (2026) 2026 年地球生命力报告 – 希望的科学。

WWF, Gland, Switzerland.

世界自然基金会，格朗，瑞士。

Marconi V, Deinet S, Freeman R, Puleston H, Halliwell D, McRae L.

马可尼 V、德内特 S、弗里曼 R、普莱斯顿 H、哈利韦尔 D、麦克雷 L。

(2026).

（2026）。

A deep dive into the Living Planet Index 2026 – A technical report.

深入探讨 2026 年地球生命力指数 – 技术报告。

ZSL.

ZSL。

Our articles and data visualizations rely on work from many different people and organizations.

我们的文章和数据可视化依赖于许多不同的人和组织的工作。

When citing this article, please also cite the underlying data sources.

引用本文时，请同时注明底层数据来源。

This article can be cited as:

这篇文章可以引用为：

We are a live site and we keep our work maintained.

我们是一个活跃的网站，我们会保持我们的工作。

So our articles are often changed, including the data.

所以我们的文章经常改，包括数据。

You can browse previous versions of this work here.

您可以在此处浏览此作品的先前版本。