Learn About the Top Five Threats to Nature – Protect Nature Challenge

The delicate balance of biodiversity is now threatened.

An important way to improve the state of our natural world is to learn more about the major threats to biodiversity. In 2019, scientists around the world confirmed that nature is declining at an alarming rate.

There are five direct drivers of biodiversity loss:

1. Habitat loss, which is the lead threat to biodiversity and contributes to the endangerment of over 80 percent of all species.
2. Pollution, including the use of chemicals, fossil fuels and plastics, which disrupts the earth’s ecosystems, injuring species and changing their habits.
3. Rapidly increasing climate change, which is changing growing patterns, food availability and migration patterns faster than ecosystems and species can adjust.
4. Overexploitation, which is the over-harvesting of species faster than they can naturally reproduce.
5. Invasive species, which are often introduced by human action and can threaten native species and their ecosystems.

Find out more about the importance of biodiversity and what you can do.

Let’s do this together

Share these challenges with your friends and family and show us what you are doing by tagging us in your social media messages and by using the hashtag #ProtectNature.

We’re on Instagram @canenvironment, Facebook @EnvironmentandClimateChange and Twitter @environmentca.

Need inspiration?

Check out our list of challenges to help protect nature.