When Colcom Foundation describes the environmental cost of population growth, it reaches for some of the most visceral evidence available: the disappearance of birds and wildlife that once filled North American skies and forests.
The numbers are stark. North America’s bird population has declined from ten billion to seven billion in fifty years a loss of 2.9 billion birds. Wild vertebrate animal populations have roughly halved during the same window that the human population doubled. Colcom Foundation uses these trends to argue that habitat loss driven by expanding human settlement is among the most pressing and least acknowledged environmental issues of our time.
Land Under Pressure
By 2020, the U.S. had converted the equivalent of Montana, West Virginia, and South Carolina combined into paved or built-over surfaces. Agricultural uses consumed 52% of the national land base. Only 13% of U.S. land enjoyed any level of conservation protection. These figures, the foundation argues, tell the story of a landscape being relentlessly claimed by a growing population.
Colcom Foundation is careful to situate wildlife decline within a longer historical frame. Ten thousand years ago, wild animals accounted for 99% of the weight of vertebrate land animals on Earth, with humans making up the remainder. Today, wild animals account for just 1%, while humans represent 32% and livestock the remaining 67%. This shift did not happen in isolation it tracked the explosive growth of human population and the land demands that came with it.
The IUCN’s data on threatened and near-threatened species reinforces the trend. Among species in those categories, the proportion with declining populations has remained high and, in many groups, continues to worsen.
The Foundation’s Connection
Colcom Foundation draws a direct line from these wildlife data to its funding priorities. The foundation contends that protecting biodiversity requires stabilizing the human population that is displacing it, and that immigration-driven population growth in the U.S. is the dominant force now shaping the country’s long-term ecological trajectory. Through their grants, they have supported many organizations, such as the Center for Biological Diversity, which works towards protecting endangered species, and the Sierra Club Foundation, which advocates clean energy and climate solutions. These grants have helped to advance important causes and support organizations that strive to make a difference.
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