Despite our impact, there were inspiring wildlife wins this year

It is hard not to feel despondent about what we have lost from the natural world, but as Wild Wild Life columnist Penny Sarchet looks back at 2022, she finds some reasons for hope

By Penny Sarchet

BEING a wildlife enthusiast at this point of the Anthropocene can feel like desperately trying to enjoy the very best of planet Earth while it is in the process of rapidly vanishing, a feeling that intensified for me this year. In October, the 2022 Living Planet Index, an analysis of 5230 species of vertebrates, suggested that populations of mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish have, on average, declined by 69 per cent since 1970. When enjoying spring birdsong, for example, it is hard not to feel sad for how much louder and more widespread it was not that long ago. …