David Attenborough leads call for world to invest US$500b a year to protect nature

[LONDON] British broadcaster David Attenborough on Wednesday led a campaign by conservation groups for the world to invest US$500 billion a year to halt the destruction of nature, saying the future of the planet was in "grave jeopardy".

Mr Attenborough, whose new film A Life on Our Planet documents the dangers posed by climate change and the extinction of species, made his statement as the United Nations convened a one-day summit aimed at galvanising action to protect wildlife.

"Our natural world is under greater pressure now than at any time in human history, and the future of the entire planet - on which every single one of us depends - is in grave jeopardy," Mr Attenborough, 94, said in a news release.

"We still have an opportunity to reverse catastrophic biodiversity loss, but time is running out." Opening the summit in New York, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said a million species were at risk of extinction and that climate change and the loss of biodiversity were "destroying Earth's web of life".

"Humanity is waging war on nature, we need to change our relationship with it," Mr Guterres said.

The push to redirect financing away from fossil fuels and other polluting industries and into locally led conservation was launched by environmental group Fauna & Flora International and backed by more than 130 organisations.

REUTERS