Restoring Nature Is Key to a More Resilient Future

Nature is humanity's life-support system, but it is being depleted at an alarming rate, leaving the world increasingly vulnerable. From deadly heatwaves and ferocious wildfires to catastrophic floods and prolonged droughts, the impacts of environmental change this year can no longer be ignored. With El Niño forecast to strengthen further, the risks to people, nature and economies are only mounting.

These shocks are unfolding against a backdrop of widespread nature loss. WWF's Living Planet Report 2026 shows that the average size of monitored wildlife populations fell by 73 percent between 1970 and 2022. Nature degradation is increasingly a matter of economic and national resilience, affecting food security, water sources, health, supply chains and geopolitical stability.

The situation is grave, but science shows there is ground for hope. The economic systems driving nature's decline can be transformed, and change can accelerate far faster than many expect. Evidence shows that under the right conditions, positive change can cross tipping points and become self-reinforcing, making a safer, more resilient future not only possible but inevitable.

The question is: how do we drive the action needed to trigger those tipping points and speed up the transition?

Positive tipping points and the opportunity for transformation

In the environmental field, we often think of tipping points as threats to vital ecosystems such as coral reefs or the Amazon rainforest, where cumulative losses risk compounding and becoming ever harder to reverse. These dangers are real and urgent. Yet tipping-point dynamics can also work in our favour.

Three economic systems drive most of nature's decline: the energy system causing climate change; the global food system driving habitat loss and climate change; and the financial system behind them all. Triggering tipping points in these systems would help them shift rapidly for the better and reduce harm to climate and nature. Once past the threshold, change can happen quickly as knowledge and technology advance, solutions become cheaper and more accessible, and people learn from one another. Encouragingly, progress is already under way, though not everywhere and not yet at the scale needed, but enough to prove that change is possible.

The world is not short of targets for 2030. What is missing is the speed of delivery. With the Global Biodiversity Framework, the UN Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Agreement already in place, governments have agreed a roadmap. Focusing on fully implementing these agreements would enable rapid systemic change.

The global energy system has already crossed a tipping point, with the shift away from fossil fuels towards renewable energy accelerating. Though far from complete, this transition shows that rapid systemic change is possible, offering valuable lessons for the equally urgent transformation of the food and financial systems.

Twenty years ago, solar power was mainly used in satellites and pocket calculators. Today it is the cheapest option for new electricity generation in most countries. Affordable solar panels are powering rural households and improving the resilience of food and health supply chains. Renewable technology is displacing fossil fuels at a pace few predicted a decade ago.

Changing the food and financial systems is happening more slowly but is no less urgent. To reach the food system's tipping point, we need to hit key milestones in the adoption of nature-friendly food production and see broader shifts in consumer demand for healthier, more sustainable food, reinforcing and accelerating the transition. Some progress is being made in efforts to tackle commodity-driven deforestation, and more than 130 countries now have national strategic plans for food system transformation, but commitments have yet to be turned into the policies and incentives needed to speed up the shift.

Creating a tipping point in the financial system, so that more capital flows into activities that protect and restore nature rather than those that harm it, is a fundamental challenge. Achieving it requires a combination of regulatory change, subsidy reform and a shift in how the sector assesses climate and nature as material financial risks. If even part of the money currently directed towards harmful activities were redirected to environmental restoration, it could transform the economics of the entire transition.

Governments attending COP17 on biodiversity and COP31 on climate now have a major opportunity to work together to accelerate the action needed to trigger positive tipping points and build resilience for societies and the global economy.

Lessons from conservation success

Hidden within the broader picture of global biodiversity decline are inspiring stories of species recovery. Green turtle and tiger populations are rebounding thanks to dedicated conservation efforts bringing together governments, communities and organisations.

Creating systemic change will also require action from all of us, from governments to businesses, financial institutions, local communities and individuals. We know what we need to achieve and the obstacles we must overcome together; the task now is to create the conditions for positive change to gain momentum and become self-reinforcing.

Building the strength and resilience of our natural support system will require the courage to move from extractive, wasteful economies focused on short-term gain to sustainable, regenerative systems for the long-term benefit of all. We have the targets, solutions and roadmap to get there. There may be setbacks along the way, but science shows that nature and the climate can still recover, and change can happen faster than we think.

The views in this article are the author's and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Al Jazeera.