BIODIVERSITY AT RISK

TODAY’S CHOICES MATTER

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Life on Earth, which originated about 4 billion years ago,1 provides the ever-changing, wondrous whole of nature that makes our planet our home. Worms that tunnel through glacial ice, peeking out to feed at dusk. Mangroves that weave a living wall, bolstering shorelines against wind and wave. The wildebeest that, through its grazing, helps prevent a wildfire.

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Biodiversity is the rich variety of living things that, woven together, support and sustain life on Earth. This “fabric of life” encompasses humans and animals, plants, fungi, bacteria, and other microorganisms; the variations in individual traits within each species; and the diverse ecosystems they create. The continued health of all life on the planet, including human life, depends on making choices that will protect biodiversity.

Biodiversity today is facing grave threats. Species are disappearing at a rate that far exceeds any seen for millions of years: 1 million species are now threatened with extinction.2 The impacts are felt not only in remote ecosystems but also in the daily lives of many people who are suffering food insecurity, struggling to find clean water, and losing their lands and livelihoods as a result of this decimation. These trends are already threatening the economic stability of nations and regions.3 Protecting biodiversity is a matter of survival. At this moment of crisis, we turn to one urgent question: How can we stop this downward spiral?

1 WHAT IS BIODIVERSITY?

Biodiversity is the rich variety of living things that, woven together, support and sustain life on Earth.

Biodiversity has many dimensions. It encompasses genes, organisms, species, and their intricate interactions in ecosystems. It is all living things and the relationships among them, the thrumming hive of activity and connection that has been called the “fabric of life.” 4

Biodiversity Is Change

Living things are in a constant state of change. For billions of years, even the largest of Earth’s organisms were no bigger than the period that marks the end of this sentence. Even so, they developed a dizzying array of strategies for survival, feasting on sunlight or chemicals—and expelling oxygen into the atmosphere that set the stage for all of us to be breathing right now—as they bobbed or swam through the ocean. The emergence of multicellular organisms fueled an explosion of life forms, eventually bringing forth plants, fungi, and animals that colonized the land and adapted to its every nook and cranny.5 Over many millions of years, Earth’s biodiversity has seen major waves of expansion and extinction,6 with countless species from skittering crustaceans to lumbering dinosaurs arising and disappearing. Today is no exception. All around you, life on Earth is evolving, adapting, and changing.

Marine iguanas and a Sally Lightfoot crab on the Galapagos Islands.

Biodiversity Is Everywhere

Biodiversity is in your backyard and on the far side of the world. Ecosystems—networks of organisms that function together with their physical environment—burst with life in every spot on Earth, from deep ocean trenches to soaring mountain peaks. In your own body dwell trillions of microbes that help you digest food and fend off disease-causing pathogens.7 Along shorelines, vast underwater meadows of seagrass offer shelter and nursery grounds for countless marine animals, including the dugong, or “sea cows,” that serenely graze upon them.8 In desert oases, rare and remote species quench their thirst.9 Underneath ancient rock paintings depicting the life that thrived there thousands of years ago.

A dugong, or sea cow, grazes on seagrass.

Biodiversity Is Connection

We often think of living things as individuals. In fact, biodiversity comprises not just the sum of existence of individual organisms and species but also the totality of actions and connections between organisms. Even seemingly disconnected individual organisms or types of species are inextricably linked to each other through food webs,10 competition, collaboration, and interactions with the physical environment. Trees share nutrients, carbon, and water with one another through intricate networks of underground fungi.11 At the same time, wolves can play a critical role in a forest’s very existence. Where populations of the gray wolf have declined precipitously due to human interference, a resulting surge in deer and elk populations has dramatically changed the composition of ecosystems and landscapes.12 The ability for hardwood trees to reach maturity is reduced by 100 times in these heavily grazed areas.13 The shrinking of hardwood forests in turn has ripple effects throughout the ecosystem and may even result in alteration of the landscape itself by changing the flow and shape of streams—changes that could be reversed when wolf populations are allowed to rebound and keep the deer and elk populations in check.

Wolves and other predators play a critical role in forest ecosystems by controlling populations of grazing animals such as deer and elk.

Biodiversity Includes Us

Humans and cultural diversity are integral to Earth’s biodiversity. The range of lifestyles we enjoy today reflects our species’ long history of migration, adaptation, and interaction with our surroundings. Humanity’s connection to the rest of nature is pervasive in our traditions. Many Indigenous people emphasize the intrinsic value of all life; some have devised rituals and taboos that preserve natural sites and the biodiversity they contain. U’wa communities in Colombia, for example, follow strict rules, including taking only fallen fruit, never cutting some trees, hunting certain animals at precise times of the year, and allowing only shamans to enter sacred areas.14 In addition, major world religions hold tenets that humanity is not separate from nature, and therefore must protect it. Many Christian denominations emphasize the stewardship of creation. For example, Pope Francis wrote in 2015, “Because of us, thousands of species will no longer give glory to God by their very existence, nor convey their message to us. We have no such right.”15 Islamic teachings describe nature as God’s creation and the responsible use of nature’s bounty as an expression of devotion to God. Hindu and Buddhist traditions encourage practitioners to cultivate a spiritual relationship with nature.16

Unique to Hawaiian rainforests, happy-face spiders have become a cultural icon in Hawaii and a symbol of the need to protect biodiversity.

HOW IS BIODIVERSITY MEASURED?

There are myriad ways to study biodiversity, including taking stock of numbers of species, monitoring the behavior and interactions between organisms and their physical environment, and assessing the functioning of ecosystems at the landscape scale.

To understand the complex dynamics within an ecosystem, it is necessary first to identify what species live there. For example, scientists may take a scoop of marsh mud or mark off a square meter of forest floor and record each organism they find. Many species have been discovered this way, and repeating these observations can reveal patterns of change over space and time. In the past decade, interest in measuring and observing nature has led to the growth of community science (“citizen science”). Community scientists have played a big role in observing and recording biodiversity in locations around the world, such as with iNaturalist,17 an application that anyone can use to share online their observations of organisms.

Scientists also examine the genetic similarities of organisms to help reveal relationships among them, including known organisms and ones yet to be discovered. For bacteria—the great majority of which are unknown—genetic information provides the only readily available means we have for assessing their numbers and variety. Finally, scientists also study the behavior of organisms and the functioning of ecosystems at the landscape scale. This provides insights into how living things interact with each other and with the physical environment.


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2 WHY IS BIODIVERSITY IMPORTANT?

Wherever you live, wild creatures, plants, and ecosystems are integral to your well-being, health, nutrition, and way of life. The strong and ancient connections between humans and other living species mean that we cannot really separate ourselves from the ecosystems within which we evolved. Although humans have come to dominate many of Earth’s ecosystems, we still rely on these connections, making conserving and restoring biodiversity a matter of survival.24

Biodiversity Enriches Our Lives

The simple experience of being outdoors and observing the beauty of nature inspires our senses and exposes us to something bigger than ourselves. Throughout human history, connections to nature have been revealed in art, cultural and religious rituals, and the inspiration and comfort these bring. Walking, gardening, swimming, and interacting with pets are all known to be beneficial to human well-being.

Experiencing nature is important for human well-being.

Biodiversity Makes Earth Livable

Humans and all other forms of life exist as parts of ecosystems, which sustain and protect us. The oxygen we breathe has been produced through photosynthesis by plants and phytoplankton in the ocean over many millions of years.25 The life that thrives in rivers, lakes, and streams helps purify these waters.26 Beneath our feet, millions of organisms aerate the soil, store carbon, and decompose plants and animals that have died, releasing the nutrients their bodies contain so they are available to sustain new life.

Organisms living in the soil decompose plants and animals that have died, releasing their nutrients to sustain new life. Soil-dwelling microbes have even provided some powerful antibiotic medicines.

Biodiversity Feeds the Human Population

The cultivation of wild plants and animals is what allowed ancient civilizations to emerge in Asia, Africa, and the Americas. Even as domesticated crops and livestock came to dominate our food systems, we have continued to rely on thousands of species of wild food plants, wild relatives of domesticated crops, and natural ecosystems for our nutrition and food security.27 All of our food comes from plants either directly or indirectly. Soil-dwelling organisms maintain the fertility of our farmland; animals such as birds, spiders, and small mammals help control insect crop pests; and bees, bats, and other animals play a vital role in pollinating many food crops. Marine and aquatic ecosystems are also crucial—more than 3 billion people depend on seafood for at least some of their daily protein.28

Crops such as almonds and blueberries rely on wild and domesticated bees for pollination.

Biodiversity Protects Our Health

Healthy, diverse ecosystems support healthy people. Disruptions to our relationship with nature and our deep connections to it can have surprising consequences: Scientists in Helsinki have linked a startling rise in respiratory, autoimmune, and other diseases to a lack of exposure to the microbes with which humans evolved.29 Green space in cities is vital for providing recreational opportunities and respite from urban heat island effects. Biodiversity also provides medicines that heal and sustain us.30 An estimated 4 billion people rely primarily on natural medicines.31 For those who depend on drugstores for their medicines, about one-quarter of those drugs were originally derived, or are still obtained, from plants and another one-quarter from bacteria and other microorganisms. For example, the aspirin in your medicine cabinet derives its active ingredient from compounds in the willow tree, used for its medicinal benefits for thousands of years.32 Recently, scientists found numerous antibiotic compounds in bacteria, including some that could help fight antibiotic- resistant infections.33 Just think what other useful compounds we may discover!

City green spaces offer opportunities to relax in nature.

Biodiversity Supports Our Economies

Biodiversity forms a living infrastructure on which much of our economic activity is based. Plants hold soil in place and buffer the effects of extreme weather events such as cyclones and floods, stabilizing the land that we depend on for our homes and farms. Trees and other plants absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, helping to mitigate climate change34 and the detrimental impacts climate change has on our cities and industries. Fisheries and aquaculture are not only important sources of nutrition but also vital economic engines for coastal communities. And the desire to explore nature’s wonders drives recreation and tourism in many places around the world. It has been estimated that the overall value of ecosystem services to human well-being equates to more than double the global gross domestic product.35 Other scientists have calculated the value of ecosystems or individual species by estimating the cost of the infrastructure that would be needed in their absence—such as the cost of building another water treatment plant if a natural wetland was not there to help filter contaminants.36 Although attempts to estimate the economic value of benefits from functioning ecosystems can provide useful perspective, the true value ecosystems provide in supporting human endeavors—and more importantly, life itself—is essentially incalculable.

Ecotourism is just one of the many ways biodiversity supports our economies.

3 WHY IS BIODIVERSITY IN CRISIS?

Wherever you live, wild creatures, plants, and ecosystems are integral to your well-being, health, nutrition, and way of life. The strong and ancient connections between humans and other living species mean that we cannot really separate ourselves from the ecosystems within which we evolved. Although humans have come to dominate many of Earth’s ecosystems, we still rely on these connections, making conserving and restoring biodiversity a matter of survival.24


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It is normal in nature for some species to become extinct, for new species to evolve, and for populations to grow and shrink over time. However, the current rate of global species extinction is tens to hundreds of times higher than the average over the past 10 million years. At least 680 vertebrate species have been driven to extinction since the 16th century and more than 40% of amphibian species, almost 33% of reef-forming corals, and more than one-third of all marine mammals are threatened.37 Even for species that are not threatened with extinction, the abundance, or number of individuals in a species, has plummeted in many places. Over the past half- century, monitored populations of mammals, birds, fish, reptiles, and amphibians fell by nearly 70%, on average.38 These local population declines can cause drastic ecosystem impacts even if the species on the whole does not go extinct.

Earth appears to be on the brink of a massive loss of biodiversity, with some 1 million species today under some threat,39 along with well-documented declines in genetic diversity, habitats, and ecosystems—unraveling the fabric that is biodiversity. This will be the first such loss that is brought about by human hands.40

More than 40% of amphibian species are threatened, including the Panamanian golden frog.

A Matter of Supply and Demand

The human population has grown drastically to 7.9 billion over the past few centuries, fueling a sharp uptick in our demand for food, fuel, and space. Economic growth and consumption has been even more pronounced, bringing a higher quality of life to billions of people but increasing the average footprint each person leaves on our planet. Humanity’s expansion has come at a cost to the ecosystems we exploit. The population is projected to rise to nearly 10 billion in the next 30 years (by 2050), which will place even greater strain on ecosystems.

In investment terms, nature is the world’s “most precious asset,” yet humanity has, collectively, mismanaged its global portfolio to devastating consequences.44 Human demands far exceed nature’s capacity to supply the goods and services on which we all rely. Vast amounts of energy, water, and natural resources are wasted along the supply chain, and as much as one-third of all food produced is wasted.45 There are gross inequities in consumption and access to resources, with the average person in high-income regions like the United States, Western Europe, and Japan consuming many times the amount of resources used by people in the more numerous and more populous low-income countries. Achieving equitable access to resources for all people without worsening overexploitation and ecosystem degradation is a challenge of monumental proportions.

Image of crowd of people crossing a street

Changes in the Use of the Land and the Sea

Humans have been a major shaper of Earth’s features, altering much of the planet’s ice-free land surface.46 The clearing of land for farming and raising livestock has been one of humanity’s biggest impacts, taking up a full 50% of habitable land today.47 At the local scale, natural environments have been altered or disturbed by the building of cities, roads, and other infrastructure, and by extractive processes such as fishing, logging, mining, and oil and gas activities. The resulting habitat loss and fragmentation is among the greatest threats to species and ecosystems. For example, the loss of 35% of natural wetlands between 1970 and 2015 from land use change and other factors such as pollution48 not only threatens hundreds of thousands of species but also puts coastlines at greater risk of storms, erosion, and pollution.

The clearing of land for farming and raising livestock takes up a full 50% of habitable land today.

Unchecked Exploitation

Once considered inexhaustible, the world’s natural resources are now dwindling.49 With our present model of extracting profits from nature, we have decimated natural environments and their unique biodiversity for products like wood, food, and fur. For example, since humans started cutting down forests, 46% of trees have been felled globally, often without reforestation.50 These types of changes have far-reaching effects on species and the health of entire ecosystems and the ways ecosystems benefit humans. Converting vast swaths of the world’s forests and prairies to agricultural fields, for example, has compromised the land’s ability to absorb carbon dioxide, prevent erosion, maintain pollinator populations, and purify air and water. Draining Indonesia’s vast peat swamp forests to create palm oil plantations exposed carbon-rich peat soils that are highly flammable—fueling large, nearly inextinguishable fires that harm the species living there, generate heat-trapping carbon emissions, and pollute the air across Southeast Asia.51

Government incentives often favor expanding economic activity with little consideration of the harm it may cause to people or biodiversity. In fact, government subsidies for activities that exploit nature for energy, raw materials, agriculture, water, and fisheries carry an estimated price tag of $6 trillion each year.52 The economic activity supported by these incentives is often conducted for the benefit of businesses and consumers far away while the consequences of the associated ecosystem exploitation are felt by many rural and forest-dwelling households that rely on productive local ecosystems (e.g., small-scale farms and fisheries) for much of their livelihoods. Beyond legal activities, corruption—notably bribery of government officials—further exacerbates biodiversity losses. The cost of environmental crime, including the illegal wildlife trade, illegal fishing, and illegal mining, is estimated to be between $91 billion and $258 billion annually and has grown by two to three times the growth rate of the global gross domestic product.53

Vast peat swamp forests have been drained in Indonesia to create palm oil plantations. The peat-rich soils are highly flammable, making the area more vulnerable to fires.

Changing the Climate

Humanity’s ever-growing demand for energy supplied by fossil fuels is driving the climate crisis, the impacts of which are projected to represent the biggest single threat to biodiversity in the coming years.54 As warmer weather drives some species into higher altitudes, populations are becoming restricted to shrinking livable areas. Droughts have become more extensive in recent decades.55 Hurricanes have become more intense. As the Arctic thaws, microbial pathogens are emerging and long-buried carbon is escaping, further amplifying global warming.56 Warming ocean waters threaten many species, especially those that depend on ice for hunting, and shellfish and corals struggle to thrive as oceans become warmer and more acidic. Mass coral bleachings and die-offs are becoming more common. Catastrophic wildfires are now an annual threat in parts of the United States and many other places; the 2020 Australian bushfires—which burned 186,000 square kilometers, an area the size of some entire countries—are estimated to have killed 3 billion animals.57

Climate change is making wildfires and other extreme events more frequent, threatening species and ecosystems.

Polluting the Planet

Humans are spreading vast quantities of pollutants around the world, moving natural products such as metals to new places and creating synthetic products that have never before existed. Globally, humans generated more than 6 billion metric tons of plastic waste between 1950 and 201558—an amount roughly equivalent to just over half of the total biomass in the world’s oceans.59 The vast majority of this waste will linger in landfills, the oceans, and other natural environments for the foreseeable future—harming seabirds, turtles, and marine mammals. We already know that micro- and nano-plastics are everywhere, but are just beginning to understand their potential effects on organisms, including us. At the same time, more than 8,700 synthetic chemicals are used in global commerce,60 from weed killers to cosmetics, with numerous effects on the health of Earth’s creatures.

Synthetic fertilizers applied in the U.S. Midwest drain into the Mississippi River and create a 5,200 square kilometer (or 2,000 square mile) oxygen-starved dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico each summer that can kill fish and other marine life.61 Manufactured chemicals such as polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, which are ubiquitous in consumer products, are now found around the globe, even in the most remote ecosystems. Scientists detected these chemicals in the snow falling on Antarctica and the seals living along its coast.62,63

Plastic and other forms of pollution are present in every place on Earth as a result of human activities. In addition to the obvious garbage that clogs rivers and threatens sea life, tiny, invisible pieces of plastic are pervasive in the air we breathe and the water we drink.

Enabling Invaders

Globalized transport and trade have enabled many species to spread to areas where they were not native, often destabilizing the cohesion of the existing ecosystems when they get a foothold. The brown tree snake, accidentally introduced to Guam after World War II, has eliminated 10 of 12 native bird species found there.64 Without birds, efforts to regenerate Guam’s forests are failing. Roughly 142 bird, mammal, and reptile species around the world have gone extinct due to invasive predators; an additional 596 species are considered vulnerable, endangered, or critically endangered.65 The damage from invasive species is estimated to triple every decade. Mosquitoes, rats, and termites are estimated to have caused a total of at least $1.3 trillion in damage to food crops, property, and how we can use some ecosystems because they were carried to new regions aboard ships.66,67 Even a single introduced species can disrupt the fabric of an ecosystem, causing an overwhelming toll. A 2019 survey found that the two amphibian chytrid fungi, which originated in Asia and spread around the world through trade, caused the decline of 501 amphibian species globally between 1965 and 2015.68 Of these, 90 species have gone extinct. Introduced species may sometimes increase the number of species in a particular area, yet homogenize the biodiversity we see around the world, akin to the effect when a global chain restaurant pops up and the local flavors and characters of local restaurants and shops are compromised.

Accidentally introduced to Guam after World War II, the brown tree snake has eliminated 10 of 12 native bird species found there.

CROWDING OUT NATIVE SPECIES

Conserving regional biodiversity often requires vigilantly preventing the establishment of non-native species. The problem is most pronounced on islands. When Kahili ginger, native to the Himalayan lowlands, was introduced to Hawaii in 1940, it did well—many say, too well—in the island’s wet forest. The ginger’s broad leaves and extensive belowground root system form an impenetrable, dense stand, crowding out native Hawaiian plants.69 The ginger can block stream edges, altering how water flows through the island. Similarly, in Tahiti and the Galapagos Islands, invasions of Miconia, a shallow-rooted shrub that grows rapidly, threatens many of the endemic species and can increase the risk of landslides.70 Not only do these invaders threaten the high number of endemic species found there, they also alter the fundamental ecosystem functions. At the same time, aggressive, adaptable non-native species are establishing in other parts of the world as they have on islands, and are reducing biodiversity on a global scale.

4 WHAT CAN WE DO?

“It’s surely our responsibility to do everything within our power to create a planet that provides a home not just for us, but for all life on Earth.”
—Sir David Attenborough, broadcaster and natural historian

Knowing that maintaining biodiversity is crucial to life on Earth and that it is declining rapidly points to one conclusion: We must work harder to slow and even reverse biodiversity decline or face a future where much of what we value and rely on is lost. Leadership is vital to this effort and world leaders have taken some steps to address this challenge. For example, the Sustainable Development Goals, adopted by the United Nations in 2015, outline objectives for protecting the planet while ending poverty by 2030.71 Separately, a proposed Global Goal for Nature, currently in negotiation, aims to turn our current trajectory around and make humanity nature positive by 2030 and achieve full recovery in biodiversity by 2050.72 These timelines are short and the goals are ambitious because the problem is so urgent, and so important. However, change is not easy. It takes coordination at local, national, and international levels. It requires working against entrenched practices, such as the clearing of forests for agriculture. The size of the challenge will only grow in the decades ahead. Billions of people still need access to clean water, food, sanitation, and energy, and by 2050, the global population is expected to reach about 10 billion, up from about 6 billion at the century’s start.73 Meeting these demands will only accelerate environmental degradation unless we take action now to change our ways.

We Can Protect and Restore Biodiversity

Success stories illustrate that conservation efforts can be effective. The recovery of the iconic bald eagle in the United States is one example.74 Decades of habitat destruction, hunting, and exposure to pollutants decimated the population to less than 100 eagles by the 1970s. Like other predators at the top of the food chain, eagles play an important role in ecosystems by culling and controlling populations of rodents and other prey. Today, the bald eagle population is estimated at more than 300,000 thanks to a series of actions that included banning the pesticide DDT, prohibiting the killing of eagles, improving water quality in U.S. lakes and rivers, establishing protected nest areas, and reintroducing eagles in areas where they had been eliminated.

The successful restoration of some fish populations, combined with a greater emphasis on responsible harvest practices and the protection of habitat, has brought not only ecological but also economic benefits. Nearly two decades after fish stocks became so depleted that the fishing technique known as bottom trawling was banned in waters along much of the U.S. West Coast, vast stretches of the Pacific Ocean were reopened to the harvesting of groundfish (such as rockfish). Groundfish populations, having been allowed to rebound, are now considered healthy enough to bring back an entire fishing industry with more sustainable practices. Bottom trawling is allowed again in some areas but restricted in areas deemed essential to fish reproduction and extremely deep waters that contain rare deep-sea corals and sponges.75

Recently, scientists and policy makers have increasingly focused on the protection of marine resources as a way to preserve biodiversity, boost the yields of fisheries, and mitigate climate change.76 This may be particularly efficient if marine protected areas are implemented through a globally coordinated prioritization effort, according to a 2019 study.77 More responsible use of the ocean’s resources could help to reshape the global economy and provide sustainable solutions to meet the food and energy needs of a growing human population.

It is even possible to revive entire ecosystems, such as through reforestation. An example of reforestation is the Tijuca forest in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.78 Cut down to create coffee and sugar plantations in the 1700s, the forest was rebuilt more than 100 years ago to protect Rio’s water supply and is now a celebrated national park that maintains many native plant and animal species, including some that are threatened. More broadly, there are many efforts to replant and reforest, to regain forested ecosystems.

Wildlife rescue, rehabilitation, and “rewilding” can be effective approaches to protecting and restoring biodiversity. Rewilding can involve intentionally reintroducing organisms to an area, or it can mean simply leaving the land alone to let nature take over. The 2,800 square kilometer (just over 1,000 square miles) area surrounding the Chernobyl nuclear plant—the site of one of the world’s worst nuclear disasters—underwent a remarkable transformation in the decades after it was closed to human activity.79 Though it was never intended as a conservation measure, and while many species were adversely affected by radiation from the site, the exclusion of humans from this large area in Northern Ukraine allowed a rebound of once abundant species, including keystone predators such as wolves.

Technology may bring new options for slowing biodiversity loss. For example, in agriculture, scientists are developing technologies for regenerative farming, an approach that seeks to reduce harm to the land and restore and revitalize soil as it is farmed.80 Cities can incorporate technologies and biodiversity- sensitive urban design principles for a more positive relationship with nature.81 And as world leaders work to combat climate change and biodiversity loss, scientists are studying ways to help ecosystems adapt; for example, by examining genes that could give corals greater temperature tolerance to prevent coral bleaching.82 Although we cannot yet rely on biotechnology to bring species back from extinction, technological advances offer useful tools to aid many conservation efforts.

The Role of Zoos, Aquariums, Botanical Gardens, and Museum Collections
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The application of genetics can also play a role in helping to preserve biodiversity. Many of the crops we rely on today are highly vulnerable to pests, disease, and climate change. For example, chocolate’s key ingredient is grown from a single species—the cacao tree—which is threatened by rising temperatures in some of the leading regions producing this important crop, such as Ghana and Ivory Coast.86 By preserving the genetic diversity found in wild relatives of crops, which over time have evolved ways of overcoming environmental challenges, we may be able to hedge against these risks. There are tens of thousands of wild or rarely cultivated species that could provide a richly varied range of nutritious foods, resistance to disease, and tolerance of the changing environment87—if they survive. Fortunately, it is now possible to efficiently sequence and catalog the genetic information for all life on Earth, and the emerging field of conservation genomics is exploring how such data can be used to help threatened species.88 Currently, the focus is largely on vertebrate species.

Research in the life sciences and biotechnology is driving an emerging bioeconomy, which features bio-based products such as fabrics made from biosynthetic spider silk.89 Past economic gains from biodiversity, for example, the use of cross-breeding to improve yields in farming, are just the start of what is possible with today’s technological advances; genetic materials fisheries management a treasure trove from which products and ideas might emerge; and their loss could represent missed opportunities.

A Partnership for the Monarch Butterfly Habitat
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The Role of Policies and Governance

Well-designed laws and regulations can be effective in bringing about change. The U.S. Endangered Species Act, for example, has helped several hundred species avoid extinction.93 Signed into law in 1973, the Act requires assessments of the impacts on endangered and threatened species of any proposed activities on government and private lands. Other landmark U.S. legislation includes the Clean Air Act in 197094 and the Clean Water Act in 1972,95 both of which delivered dramatic reductions in pollution in U.S. cities and waterways. In the United States and other countries, there are government incentives that target conservation efforts. For example, in Europe, large investments in reforestation for climate change mitigation are under way.

Fighting Climate Change with Nature
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Establishing protected areas is one of the most effective conservation strategies, when they are managed and monitored effectively and are supported by local communities, as well as by civil society more broadly. On land, protected areas include national and state parks and forests, national monuments, and wildlife refuges where human activities such as logging, hunting, fishing, mining, or urban development are prohibited. However, a recent study96 found that even in protected areas, nearly half of the forests are affected by human-caused modifications of their structure, composition, and function. Such modifications reduce many ecosystem benefits and may also precede outright deforestation.

The Role of NONGOVERNMENTAL Organizations in Protecting Wildlife
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Marine protected areas, where disturbances such as fishing and drilling are prohibited, have repeatedly been shown to improve the diversity and abundance of marine life. Scientists are identifying particularly diverse areas that will guide where marine protected areas are most needed. In addition to protected areas, other effective conservation measures (OECMs) is a newer designation that focuses on retaining biodiversity in ecosystems that are managed or utilized for other activities such as fishing, hunting, low density grazing, or other cultural activities.97 This designation can encompass much larger areas of land and oceans than protected areas and provides opportunities for more equitable practices that support local and Indigenous communities. As of May 2021, at least 16.6% of land and inland water ecosystems globally and 7.7% of coastal waters and oceans are within protected areas and OECMs.98

Quarantine regulations and disease-protection practices in trade and travel are also intended to help prevent the catastrophic introduction of invasive species and exposure to disease- causing organisms, respectively. For example, the United States banned the import of salamanders in an effort to keep the chytrid fungus from spreading among native salamander populations.99 Strong restrictions on imports to New Zealand and Australia have been successful in preventing even more non-native species from being introduced there. Emerging technologies can help to enforce policies and restrictions on entering protected areas or taking prohibited items. In South Africa and Zambia, animal-mounted sensors are being used along with thermal cameras and drones to help park rangers intercept poachers before they can reach protected species.100,101 Several nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and community- based organizations are involved in managing and enforcing protected areas, especially where laws and regulations are not working well to solve the problem.

The Role of International Cooperation

International treaties and agreements provide a means for countries to work together toward common goals. For example, the Montreal Protocol, finalized in 1987, established a plan to phase out the use of chemicals that were depleting Earth’s protective ozone layer.108 At the time, a growing hole in the ozone layer was leading to the bleaching of phytoplankton, the basis of marine food webs, and harming the health of humans and other species by letting in more ultraviolet light from the sun. It was the first treaty to be ratified by all countries in the world, and it has since succeeded in helping the ozone hole to heal. The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES)109 works to ensure that the multibillion-dollar international trade in wild animals and plants—for food, wood, pets, and medicines, among other goods—does not threaten their survival. CITES now includes 182 member countries plus the European Union and strives to provide varying degrees of protection to more than 37,000 species of animals and plants.

Tackling the Socioeconomic Dimensions of Biodiversity Decline
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Another international agreement, the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD),111 was established in 1993 and focuses on the conservation of biological diversity, the sustainable use of the components of biological diversity, and the fair and equitable sharing of the benefits arising out of the use of genetic resources. The 15th major conference of the CBD, held in two parts in 2021 and 2022, will take important steps to set the global intergovernmental policy for biodiversity for the coming decades. The Paris Agreement on climate change,112 adopted by 196 countries in 2015, represents an important step toward protecting biodiversity through actions aimed at avoiding the worst impacts of climate change such as worsening fires, droughts, and extreme weather events. Reversing the climate crisis will require using the tools available now and developing breakthroughs for getting all of our energy from “clean” electricity (produced by renewable sources with steps to minimize the impact on ecosystems), changing how and what we farm, and changing the way we make products such as fertilizers and cement.113

Since 2012, the Intergovernmental Science- Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) has emerged as a valuable resource for informing and guiding biodiversity conservation and sustainable management efforts worldwide, similar to the role the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has played for advancing knowledge and action on climate change. IPBES and IPCC held their first joint workshop in late 2020 to identify connections and challenges between biodiversity protection and climate change mitigation and adaptation.114

Confronting the Impacts of Our Lifestyle Choices

Perhaps the biggest challenge to slowing bio- diversity decline is in changing our present model of interacting with nature and with each other. Vast inequalities between individuals and countries undermine our collective ability to conserve Earth’s resources.115 A person from the richest 1% of the world’s population accounts for 175 times more carbon emissions, on average, than someone from the bottom 10%.116 The drive to meet the insatiable demands of wealthier countries and sectors of society fuels the exploitation of people and natural resources in poorer parts of the world. As a result, the consequences of ecological deg- radation are often felt most acutely in places where the exploitation is greatest and are largely invisible to those who are the true drivers of that exploitation.

Few people in high-income countries like the United States, Japan, and Western Europe are aware of the impacts their lifestyle choices have in other parts of the world. Beef production, for example, is the leading driver of deforestation in the world’s tropical forests, spurred by the demand in wealthy countries.117 As standards of living improve in rising economies, the demand for beef and other products with a major ecological impact will rise, too.118 Achieving a higher quality of life for billions of people, while addressing climate change and the related decline of biological diversity, requires learning from past mistakes, promoting social justice, and a greater degree of international cooperation than anything we have been able to manage to date. The wealthier nations, which consume most of the world’s resources, have a responsibility to lead the way in addressing ecological harms and the societal inequities associated with them.

Individual Actions to Support Biodiversity

Everyone has a role to play in creating a more sustainable future. The decisions we make as individuals can influence markets, governments, and the ultimate success of the efforts to enhance and restore biodiversity.

Everyday choices about what we eat or buy determine the footprint each of us leaves on Earth.


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The Time to Act Is Now

Halting and reversing the biodiversity crisis and finding approaches to sustainably meet resource demands will require systemic changes to the incentives and costs involved in the ways we build, farm, and live, especially in the wealthier nations of the world.120 The actions of individuals have an important role to play, but the scale of the crisis demands that solutions be driven by large-scale changes in governmental policies and in the economic markets related to them. Collective actions, taken on the part of nations at all levels of government and in the industrial, agricultural, and transportation sectors will be essential to creating the changes needed to restore Earth’s ecosystems. Nations around the world are paying attention to biodiversity loss and taking steps to address it.* Some of the collective actions that have high potential to address the major drivers of biodiversity loss include:

  • Respect the rights of Indigenous groups and local communities
  • Designate protected areas that are effective and ensure participatory governance and management
  • Support restoration and conservation projects
  • Participate in international efforts and treaties
  • Enact and enforce laws to protect biodiversity
  • Ensure that incentives and subsidies align with biodiversity goals
  • Use farming practices that support biodiversity (e.g., regenerative and agroecological farming)
  • Use less water, land, and energy
  • Use less fertilizer, pesticides, and antibiotics
  • Grow foods that have a low impact on biodiversity
  • Commit to supporting biodiversity and communicate that to customers and shareholders121
  • Assess the impacts of business processes on biodiversity and work to reduce them
  • Reduce the use of water, resources, and energy
  • Design products and manufacturing processes to reduce pollution and waste
  • Assess the environmental impact of roadways and shipping routes and work to reduce them
  • Restore and create plant and animal habitats along roadways
  • Monitor and restrict the spread of invasive and exotic species in transporting goods
  • Use electric cars, trucks, and trains that are powered by carbon-free energy sources
img of kids holding signs about biodiversity

Biodiversity Is Our Future

The value of biodiversity is incalculable, yet its importance is apparent in every breath we take, every bite of food, every moment spent appreciating the beauty and bounty of the natural world. All life on Earth suffers when biodiversity declines. We can all benefit from restoring a healthy, productive, and diverse home today and for future generations. But time is running out. Each extinction event involves irreversible loss. Pollution and climate change are causing untold changes with impacts that will last for centuries. As our actions throw ecosystems further and further off balance, the risk of their collapse grows higher. There is so much at stake. The choices we make today count. To stem the losses, restore what we can, and reap the benefits of conservation, we must act—and we must act now.

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RESOURCES

Biodiversity at Risk: Today's Choices Matter Biodiversity at Risk Today's Choices Matter (2022)

ENDNOTES

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