Biodiversity is simply the diversity of species, as well as the diversity and variety within species. According to the Convention on Biodiversity (CBD), there are estimated to be approximately 14 million species. Of that, 1.75 million have been catalogued by western science. New species continue to pour in. Yet a huge amount of those species are endangered, threatened, at risk, or on the brink of extinction. Humanity has caused 6X, the sixth major extinction event, called "The Holocene Extinction Event", which is ongoing right now. The most threatened group of animals today are the amphibians. Long considered an indicator species due to their permeable skins, they are among the most diverse, ecologically essential, and vulnerable of animal groups.
If you haven't noticed, species are dying off all around us; including tigers, elephants, frogs and amphibians, sharks, and corals - all of which are incredibly important. (Let add quickly to that list - the grey wolf, the lynx, walruses, monarch butterflies, oragutans, and sea turtles, according to the WWF). The most recent threat is to bats in north america, as I posted earlier this week.
The rate of biodiversity loss is completely obscene today, and is an indicator for the plight of the natural environment in general. Biodiversity is itself an indicator for the health of an ecosystem. As an ecosystem evolves, over huge amounts of time, the genetic diversity increases; given enough time, it goes to the point of developing entirely new species. As the diversity of a certain ecosystem increases, it becomes more complex and finely balanced. The most diverse ecosystems on the planet are near the equator; tropical rainforests and coral reefs. However, deserts, mountains, temperate and boreal forests, tundra, grassland, oceans, and ice are also incredibly biodiverse - or at least they used to be. At the time that humans evolved, the planet seems to have been at its utmost biodiverse. However, as humans spread around the globe, the extinctions started - beginning with the megafauna.
This is important because we need biodiversity; in fact, we need absolutely every species.
The overall biodiversity in an ecosystem is an indicator of its health and its balance. We depend on biodiversity and ecosystems for food, air, water (clean water), shelter, waste disposal and absorption, medicine, and many of our other resources such as wood/paper. These are all generated by natural ecosystems. They provide the most vital natural processes to us, and we are dependent on those processes. Among the most undervalued members of our living planet are insects, invertebrates, molds and fungi, and bacteria and viruses. Yet they are all unfathomably important. Invertebrates of all kinds are among the most valuable. The basis of most life is photosynthesis; thanks to plants and algae. The bottom of the food chain. Insects and invertebrates, on land and in the oceans, are fundamental to the food chain. If they were to be seriously threatened, the ecosystems we depend on would collapse. Of the invertebrates, one that is of extreme importance are: earthworms. There are many different species of worms, but what makes them crucial is that they eat decaying plant material, and turn it into nourishment for other plants. Soil fertility is dependent on biodiversity, worms, insects, fungi, and bacteria. The recycling of the natural world.
However, while the disappearance of species is a natural process (no species will last forever), the pace of extermination has been rapidly increasing over the last few hundred years. But like, from 1600-1900 the pace was about 1 species every 4 years. Now, it's 1-3 species EVERY DAY. In the past 100 years, 50% of the Earth's original forests and 50% of its wetlands have disappeared. Tropical species have been reduced by 40%, tropical rainforests being one of the most diverse, finely balanced, essential, and vulnerable ecosystems of all. In Canada, home to about 71,500 known species, we only have much data on 1600 species, and of that, 529 animal and plant species are at risk. However, while there is at least 71,500 known species in Canada, there are certainly more species in total than that, and there are most definitely far fewer species now than there was long ago when our natural landscape was intact.
80% of the species decline is related to habitat destruction and degradation. Our government of course is still pursuing its path of inefficiency, resource mismanagement, overharvesting, depletion, pollution, and habitat destruction.
2010 is the International Year of Biodiversity. The convention on biodiversity and other international players have been making political headway; however, that political headway is especially important because we need it in order to counter the massive economic interests of huge corporations like Exxon and other extractive industries. The amount of money to be made from exploiting natural resources is astronomical, and so we need to fight for the inherent value in maintaining biodiversity.The work being done now is barely enough to keep our integral species alive. It's therefore especially important that people understand and think about biodiversity, what it means, why we need it, and what is going on in the world.
I would love to keep writing, but I have to go, so more on this later. If you're reading this, go research what's going on for yourself, and ways you can help. Going green is a great first step.
