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A population plunge could help to mitigate the global biodiversity crisis

Ecologist Paul Ehrlich and conservation biologist Anne Ehrlich might have been wrong in their 1968 prediction that human overpopulation would lead to mass human starvation, as your recent News feature notes (see Nature 644, 594–596; 2025). However, their concerns about the environmental impacts of humanity have mainly been borne out. The global population now takes just over seven months to use the living resources generated by the planet in a year — for instance, by consuming timber and fish, and by converting natural ecosystems to agriculture (see go.nature.com/47zcvty).

Competing Interests

The authors declare no competing interests.


Source: Ecology - nature.com

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