Prince Charles warns the planet is on a 'depressing trajectory' to mass extinction
'We are rapidly destroying our means of survival,' says the Prince of Wales
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Your support makes all the difference.The Prince of Wales has warned human damage to the environment is leading towards a global mass extinction event.
Speaking ahead of a World Wildlife Fund (WWF) lecture at the Royal Society, Prince Charles said he was deeply worried "as a father and grandfather" about the challenges facing the environment, reports the Telegraph.
The WWF President and heir to the throne said: "As a father and grandfather I worry deeply about the world we are leaving behind for our successors. We are rapidly destroying our means of survival.
"Clearly we are not living within the environmental limits of our plants. Populations of vertebrate species have declined by more than half from 1970. We are on a deeply depressing trajectory to witness the sixth global mass extinction in our planet.
"We are ushering in a new era. It's alarming to realise that after 4.5 billion years that a change in epoch has been due to the activities of just a single species."
Global conservation groups have estimated by 2020, populations of vertebrae species could have fallen by 67 per cent over a five decade period - if nothing is done to reverse the damaging effects of human activity.
Naturalist Sir David Attenborough, a WWF ambassador himself, has said children born tomorrow will not have the opportunity to see the same variety of animals as he has.
Sir David was quoted by the global charity saying: "In my lifetime I have seen something of the marvellous range of wild species with which we share the planet.
“But due to the changes which today afflict the world, no one born tomorrow will have the opportunity to see such variety.
"We must surely do all we can to protect what remains."
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