A major new assessment of the current state of biodiversity warns that unless urgent action is taken, the natural systems that support humankind are at risk of collapse.

The third edition of the Global Biodiversity Outlook (GBO-3), released May 10 by the Convention on Biodiversity and the U.N. Environmental Program, confirms that governments around the world have failed to meet targets set eight years ago to reduce the rate of biodiversity loss by 2010. Instead, the five main pressures driving the loss  — habitat change, overexploitation, pollution, invasive alien species and climate change — have either remained constant or are increasing.

“Humanity has fabricated the illusion that somehow we can get by without biodiversity or that it is somehow peripheral to our contemporary world,” Achim Steiner, executive director of the U.N. Environment Program, said in a press release announcing the report. “The truth is we need it more than ever on a planet of six billion heading to over nine billion people by 2050.”

The report is based on 110 national biodiversity reports and other scientific assessments, including an analysis carried out by the Biodiversity Indicators Partnership, published last month in the journal Science, which represents the first assessment of how targets made through the 2002 Convention on Biological Diversity have not been met. That assessment noted that since 1970 the world’s animal populations have been reduced by 30 percent, the area of mangroves and sea grasses by 20 percent, and the coverage of living corals by 40 percent.

The GBO-3 outlines a possible new strategy for reducing biodiversity loss, learning the lessons from the failure to meet the 2010 target. It includes addressing the underlying causes of biodiversity loss, such as patterns of consumption, the impacts of increased trade and demographic change.

“The assessment of the state of the world’s biodiversity in 2010 should serve as a wake-up call for humanity,” Ahmed Djoghlaf, executive-secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity, said. “Business as usual is no longer an option if we are to avoid irreversible damage to the life-support systems of our planet.”

The report will be a key input into discussions by world leaders at a special high-level segment of the U.N. General Assembly on Sept. 22, as well as negotiations by world governments at the Nagoya Biodiversity Summit in October.

The GBO-3 draws attention to indigenous sacred sites, noting the thousands of community conserved areas around the world — including sacred forests, wetlands, and landscapes — and observing that “indigenous and local communities play a significant role in conserving very substantial areas of high biodiversity and cultural value.”

This deep association between sacred sites and biodiversity conservation is highlighted in many of SLFP’s sacred site reports. To learn more, check out our Beyul of the Himalaya, Gamo Highlands, Kaya Forests and Mount Sinai reports, among others.