Photo: The Canadian Press

Rapidly accelerating extinction of species is placing the planet in peril, a global-change expert will assert at a UBC Okanagan event.

Corey Bradshaw will speak at the UBCO campus on Nov. 20.

A conservation ecologist, Bradshaw is a professor at Flinders University in Australia.

Growing up the son of a trapper in Canada, he formed a unique view of the environment and learned that without intact environmental functions, resources quickly degrade or disappear. That appreciation led him into academia.

His work at Flinders University focuses on conservation ecology, climate change, energy provision, human population trends, ecosystem services, sustainable agriculture, human health, palaeoecology, carbon-based conservation initiatives and restoration techniques.

The public is invited to his free discussion, The great dying: The modern extinction of species and humanity’s peril, 3:30 to 5 p.m. at the UBCO library building, room LIB 305.

His speech follows a recent World Wildlife Fund report that says a "global biodiversity crisis" is devastating global animal populations.

According to the organization's 2018 Living Planet Report, global wildlife populations have fallen by 60 per cent in the last four decades. In Canada, it says half of the monitored vertebrate species are in decline and that drop is by 83 per cent.