Figure 2 in Summary for policymakers of the global assessment report on biodiversity and ecosystem services - unedited advance version

Figure 2. Examples of global declines in nature, emphasizing declines in biodiversity, that have been and are being caused by direct and indirect drivers of change. The direct drivers (land/sea use change; direct exploitation of organisms; climate change; pollution; and invasive alien species) 5 result from an array of underlying societal causes6. These causes can be demographic (e.g. human population dynamics), sociocultural (e.g. consumption patterns), economic (e.g. trade), technological or relating to institutions, governance, conflicts and epidemics; these are called indirect drivers7, and are underpinned by societal values and behaviors. The colour bands represent the relative global impact of direct drivers on (from top to bottom) terrestrial, freshwater and marine nature as estimated from a global systematic review of studies published since 2005. Land and sea use change and direct exploitation account for more than 50 per cent of the global impact on land, in fresh water and in the sea, but each driver is dominant in certain contexts {2.2.6}. The circles illustrate the magnitude of the negative human impacts on a diverse selection of aspects of nature over a range of different time scales, based on a global synthesis of indicators {2.2.5, 2.2.7}.