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1 Million Animal And Plant Species Are At Risk Of Extinction, U.N. Report Says

"Protecting biodiversity amounts to protecting humanity," says UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay, who warns that species are being lost at an alarming rate.
"Nature is declining globally at rates unprecedented in human history," a U.N. panel says, reporting that around 1 million species are currently at risk. Here, an endangered hawksbill turtle swims in a Singapore aquarium in 2017.

Up to 1 million of the estimated 8 million plant and animal species on Earth are at risk of extinction — many of them within decades — according to scientists and researchers who produced a sweeping U.N. report on how humanity's burgeoning growth is putting the world's biodiversity at perilous risk.

Some of the report's findings might not seem new to those who have followed stories of how humans have affected the environment, from to the and other contaminants in water. But its authors say the assessment is the most accurate and comprehensive review yet of the damage people are inflicting on the planet.

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