Nature's 'alarming' decline threatens food, water, energy - U.N.

FILE PHOTO: Logs that were illegally cut from Amazon rainforest are transported on a barge on the Tapajos river, a tributary of the Amazon, near the city of Santarem, Para state April 18, 2013. REUTERS/Nacho Doce/File Photo

OSLO (Reuters) - Human activities are causing an alarming decline in the variety of plant and animal life on Earth and jeopardising food, clean water and energy supplies, a U.N.-backed study of biodiversity said on Friday.

Pollution, climate change and forest clearances to make way for farmland were among the worsening threats to nature, according to more than 550 experts in a set of reports approved by 129 governments after talks in Colombia.