According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature and numerous scientific studies, we are already experiencing the sixth mass extinction of species on the planet: within a few years, at least half of the insect population has been eliminated; in some decades, more than half of wild mammals have been killed; and in just a few thousand years, more than half of the forests have been destroyed.

Since current rates are hundreds or thousands of times faster than the "normal" or "background" rates that prevailed over the last several tens of millions of years, it is estimated that by the end of this century, one-third to half of animal species will be threatened with extinction.

Homo sapiens and its activities, which began about 11,000 years ago with the development of agriculture, are now considered by modern science to be directly or indirectly responsible for this massive decline.

The rapidity of the impact caused by modern human activity is largely due to the staggering changes in scale: the human population, which was one million at the beginning of the Anthropocene, has now grown to 8.2 billion, and we continue to increase.

[...] (From the publication)