Chapter 2.2 Status and trends - Nature

Humanity is now a dominant influence on nature worldwide (well established) {2.2.5, 2.2.7}, with many impacts having accelerated rapidly in the 20th century (well established) {2.2.5.2}. Humanity has influenced nature significantly since prehistory, both positively (e.g., development of agrobiodiversity) and negatively (e.g., extinction of megafauna and flightless island birds) (well established) {2.2.4, 2.2.5.1}; but nature – including species, their genes and populations, communities of interacting populations, ecological and evolutionary processes, and the landscapes and ecosystems in which they live – is now declining rapidly and many facets of nature have already been much reduced (well established) {2.2.5}, supporting suggestions that Earth has entered the Anthropocene.