We’ve Destroyed One-Tenth of the World’s Wilderness Since 1990

And we’re not getting it back.


The world’s wilderness areas are declining at “catastrophic” rates, according to a new study published today in Current Biology. Since 1990, we’ve lost about one-tenth of these large, mostly unpopulated landscapes—amounting to 3.3 million square kilometers, or twice the size of Alaska.

Current Biology

The lost wilderness areas, highlighted in red in the map above, were crucial for protecting endangered plants and animals, regulating local climates, and storing carbon, while some were home to indigenous communities, according to the researchers from the University of Queensland in Australia.

Since the wilderness is, by definition, relatively free from human disturbances, it’s often ignored by conservation efforts, but things like road expansion, industrial mining, forestry and large-scale agricultural operations have threatened it, the researchers note. South America and Africa have been the most affected, losing 30 percent and 14 percent of their wilderness areas, respectively, since 1990. 

“The amount of wilderness loss in just two decades is staggering and very saddening,” James Watson, the study’s lead author, said in a statement. “You cannot restore wilderness. Once it is gone, the ecological process that underpin these ecosystems are gone, and it never comes back to the state it was.”

Watson says we likely have one to two decades to turn things around: “If we don’t act soon, it will be all gone, and this is a disaster for conservation, for climate change, and for some of the most vulnerable human communities on the planet.”

WE'LL BE BLUNT:

We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't find elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

payment methods

WE'LL BE BLUNT

We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate