Updates

Study: A Tenth of Wilderness Lost Since 1990s

Since the 1990s, we've lost an area of wilderness roughly twice the size of Alaska and half the size of the Amazon. That's according to a new study in the journal Current Biology co-authored by Dr. James Watson of the University of Queensland in Australia and WCS.

According to the authors, the Amazon and Central Africa have been hardest hit.

The findings, the researchers say, underscore an immediate need for international policies to recognize the value of wilderness areas and to address the unprecedented threats they face.

"If we don't act soon," Watson says, "there will only be tiny remnants of wilderness around the planet, and this is a disaster for conservation, for climate change, and for some of the most vulnerable human communities on the planet. We have a duty to act for our children and their children."