It’s no secret that relentless resource consumption by humans has savaged world wildlife populations. Overfishing, untrammeled agricultural expansion, poorly planned urbanization, ecologically destructive mining and drilling and unremitting air, water and soil pollution have steadily eroded global biodiversity in the past half century.  But the picture in Latin America is especially bleak, according to new data published in November by the World Wildlife Fund and the Zoological Society of London. The Living Planet Index, compiled each year from data on thousands of vertebrates, shows that the wildlife populations of Latin America and the Caribbean have shrunk far more than those of any other region, and are declining faster than ever recorded. “When you see the actual numbers it’s really shocking,” says Robin Freeman, head of the indicators and assessments unit at the Zoological Society of London. Freeman, who helped compile the index, or LPI, notes that, given his work... [Log in to read more]