NEARLY half of the world’s migratory species are in decline, according to a damning new United Nations report released today.
Many songbirds, sea turtles, whales, sharks and other migratory animals move to different environments with changing seasons and are imperilled by habitat loss, illegal hunting and fishing, pollution and climate change.
About 44 per cent of migratory species worldwide are declining in population, the report found. More than a fifth of the nearly 1,200 species monitored by the UN are threatened with extinction.
One of the major criticisms of China’s breakneck development in recent decades has been the impact on nature — returning after 15 years away, BEN CHACKO assessed whether the government’s recent turn to environmentalism has yielded results


