Nature is the best example of abundance, variety, and richness. It accomplishes this through the fruits of its labours, or gifts: biological diversity, or biodiversity. The diversity and variability of life on Earth include “diversity within species, between species, and among ecosystems,” in addition to terrestrial and marine biodiversity (Convention of Biological Diversity). But, really, how much do we know about biodiversity and how it works?
Everything we have, consume, or rely on is a direct result of natural biodiversity, except basic human survival needs (breathing, eating, and drinking). Mobile phones, for example, are made up of a variety of materials, including plastic and minerals like iron, copper, nickel, and cobalt, which are all mined from the ground. The clothes we wear, whether they are made of wool, cotton, or synthetic materials, require land, water, and energy to produce.
From mineral extraction to oil and gas extraction, food production to energy generation, fashion to urbanisation, land has always been essential in achieving human desires.
But now that 75 percent of the land has been significantly altered by anthropological impact — extensive and intensive land use, overexploitation, over-contamination, and degradation — terrestrial biodiversity, including plants, animals, insects, and humans, faces unprecedented dangers.
Terrestrial biodiversity is a richness that is still largely unknown.
Plants, wildlife, insects, and pollinators, as well as all living forms that live on or beneath the land, range from specific landscapes and ecosystems (forests, mountains, wetlands, drylands), to plants, wildlife, insects, and pollinators.
Forests are home to nearly 80% of all known amphibian species, 75% of all known bird species, and 68% of all known mammals, according to the FAO. Trees, on the other hand, can only be found on land. There are currently 60,082 species known to exist on Earth, with 20,334 of them on the verge of extinction.
One of the most difficult tasks in biodiversity is quantifying Nature’s miraculous abundance in precise numbers.
Getting to the heart of a tangled web
“Man jeopardises his health to make money. Then, to regain his health, he makes a financial sacrifice. And then he is so concerned about the future that he doesn’t enjoy the present; as a result, he doesn’t live in either the present or the future: he lives as if he will never die, and then he dies as if he never lived at all.” — The Most Holy Trinity Dalai Lama
Modern humans have no idea how to live. This is the polar opposite of what occurs in nature, where every living thing has a single goal in mind: to live in complete harmony with the whole.
Insects and pollinators are crucial to the spread of seeds and the abundance of life. Many other living beings, on the other hand, often go unnoticed but play an important role in the ecosystem. Bats, for example, directly pollinate over 500 plants, including mango, banana, and cocoa, and help to control mosquito populations. Consider the role of herbivore mammals, which eat tree species to ensure their diversity and survival. Or even invisible activities such as those of earthworms, which are critical for increasing soil nutrients, drainage, and better regulating soil structure.
Nature’s components are perfectly balanced to ensure ecological complexity.
We sometimes lose sight of the fact that each ecosystem is distinct because we are preoccupied with the ticking clock of climate change and the rush to find immediate solutions. Geographic location, microclimate, age, diversity and varieties of trees, endemic species (that can only survive in certain areas), and their delicate interconnections distinguish each. As a result, studies have shown that newly planted forests or mono-dominant plantations cannot replace primary forests in terms of carbon storage, unique ecological features, or biodiversity protection.
The current biodiversity crisis necessitates taking this complexity into account.
The United Nations-sponsored decade of ecosystem restoration 2021 marks the start of a new decade. We only have nine years to meet the goals outlined in Agenda 2030, so we must take immediate action to halt ecosystem degradation.
The irrational pursuit of profit, on the other hand, has resulted in irresponsible deforestation, urbanisation, and concrete covering.
Aside from the massive loss of biodiversity, fewer forests and trees exacerbate soil erosion by bringing topsoil and water closer together. Soil erosion reduces agricultural productivity, increases the risk of hydrological hazards such as landslides and floods, and poses a direct threat to human displacement and infrastructure damage.
The impact on communities is clear: not only for the nearly two billion indigenous people who rely on forests and nature for a living but also for those who face more severe and frequent hydrological disasters.
Italy is the second-most affected EU country by hydrogeologic disasters, extreme weather events, droughts, and forest fires, with economic losses estimated at 65 billion Euros.
Changing the biodiversity balance has repercussions on a variety of factors due to a combination of anthropogenic and natural causes, including advancing desertification, food insecurity, large-scale migration, depopulation of unproductive rural areas, frequent interaction between humans and wildlife, and the spread of zoonotic pathogens and infectious diseases. The invasion of locusts in African countries, as well as the illegal trade and market for pangolins, are the results of a broken balance that must be restored.
Conclusion:
Only when humans recognise that biodiversity is not something to be thrown away, but rather something to be respected as a common value, as the invisible fabric that holds individual, community, and planet wellbeing together, will we see true, widespread regeneration. A relationship based on interconnection, meaning, complementarity, diversity, geodiversity, variety, beauty, and richness in the interests of all living beings.