Have you seen the biodiversity decline where you live?

Biodiversity

Biodiversity is short for biological diversity. It is concerned with the variation of life on Earth. There are 3 main ways of looking at biodiversity; habitat diversity, species diversity and genetic diversity. Habitat diversity means the number of different habitat types in a region - for instance a forest, a stream and some fields. Species diversity involves counting the number of species in a given area. Genetic diversity means the variation of genes within a population or between populations. Most lists, such as the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, concentrate on species diversity and extinction.

Animals and plants interact with each other, and are often dependent on each other, so the less biodiversity there is, the less chance that an ecosystem will survive. We may be very adaptable, but being at the top of the food chain, we are dependent on everything else one way or another. Species rely on each other for some or all of food, oxygen, shelter and soil enrichment.

We have reduced biodiversity by hunting species to extinction, introducing alien or invasive species that drive the native to extinction, converting large swathes of land to monoculture, exploiting living resources such as timber and fish stocks at a sustainable rate, polluting air and water and the soil, directly and indirectly poisoning plants and animals. Our developments have driven out many plants and animals, although a few thrive. Global warming is threatening to destroy coral reefs and inundate whole islands, or at least all their low-lying areas.

While the rich may be in a position to switch from one source of food or other resources, the poor do not, so in some areas people have lost their access to clean water or to wood fuel because the habitats that ensured an adequate supply have been degraded.

Whilst we may be able to feed ourselves well now with our limited number of species of food plants and animals, having all our eggs in so few baskets leave us very vulnerable, as happened in Ireland during the potato famine. Further indiscriminate logging could lead to soil erosion and therefore reduce the amount of arable land and of filtration of clean water. Native bees are struggling to survive in some areas under the stress, and many of our food plants rely on them for pollination. Without the specialist pollinators, we may need to find alternative crops from the dwindling choice, or do without. Everything is interconnected, so there may be knock-on effects still to come.

There are clear signs that the rate of damage is accelerating, and will continue to do so unless we act now. Sunday May 22 2005 is International Day for Biological Diversity. A good day to value biodiversity.

U.N. Report Says Biodiversity on Decline

A report entitled "Ecosystems and Human Well-being: the Biodiversity Synthesis Report" has been issued in time for the International Day for Biological Diversity on Sunday. It warns that we are to blame for an alarming decline in biodiversity. The report is the second in a series of 7, the first being the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment.

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