About 1 million species around the world face extinction because of humans, with the pace of destruction as much as 100 times faster than the natural rate over the past 10 million years, according to a global report prepared by 150 experts.

The 2019 report for the Intergovernmental Science-policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) - dubbed the "Paris Agreement for nature" - drew on 15,000 references and government data in its first update since 2005.

"Biodiversity - the diversity within species, between species and of ecosystems - is declining faster than at any time in human history," the report's summary for policymakers, released in Paris on Monday, said.

Changes in land and sea use by humans were the largest drivers as nature was being "altered at an unparalleled degree" with about one in eight animal and plant species facing oblivion "many within decades, unless action is taken to reduce the intensity" of those impacts.