Around the world, nature and the benefits it provides are in unprecedented decline — a trend that can be reversed, but only with a co-ordinated international effort and “transformative change” to the way humans draw food, water, energy and resources from the planet, a sweeping new report has found. The report encompasses the first global assessment by the Intergovernmental Panel on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services. …Assembled by 145 authors from 50 countries, the report is based on a review of approximately 15,000 scientific and government publications. …While it is hardly the first report to document the accelerating pace at which nature is vanishing from the Earth, it is the first to do so under agreement by participating governments. …Yet, despite political sensitivities the summary included a clear recognition that the world will need to… move toward a more sustainable global economic system in order to have a hope of addressing the biodiversity crisis. [A subscription to the Globe and Mail is required to access this full story]