Biodiversity

The term biodiversity, from «biological diversity», refers to the variety of life on Earth at all levels, from genes to ecosystems, and can encompass the evolutionary, ecological and cultural processes that sustain life. Biodiversity includes not only threatened or endangered species, but all living things, threatened or not, from humans to organisms about which we know little, such as microbes, fungi and invertebrates.

There are many reasons why this should concern us all; some utilitarian and some intrinsic. Biodiversity provides us with such basic things as food, fuel, shelter and medicines. For example, almost all of our food has a plant or animal origin and production increases in biodiverse ecosystems. Ecosystems provide crucial services such as pollination, seed dispersal, climate regulation, water purification, nutrient cycling and agricultural pest control. Also 57% of current drugs and medicines come directly from biodiversity. In this sense, biodiversity is also important for everything that is yet to be discovered. New medical treatments and applications of animal or plant origin are constantly being discovered. For example, it has been discovered that the venom of cobra snakes can be used to treat Parkinson’s disease, and that blackberries have a molecule that can increase the efficiency of solar panels, or that the tissues of some jellyfish can be used for skin care and as an anti-aging factor. The fact that new technical and health products have yet to be discovered leads us to defend the «precautionary principle». The precautionary principle is very simple: if we do not know what it is for, we may not afford to lose it, and this is a substantial reason that should push us to make an effort to reduce or reverse the rate of loss of current species. In addition to these utilitarian reasons, there are other intrinsic ones. The intrinsic value of biodiversity refers to its inherent value, which is independent of the value it may have for any other person or entity. The value of biodiversity can be linked to the sensations or feelings it generates for us, to the relationships we form in relation to it or how it shapes who we are, among many examples. These relational values are part of the individual or collective sense of well-being, responsibility and connection of people with the environment. It is important to know and value our biodiversity. As the Senegalese forest engineer B. Dioum said: “In the end we will conserve only what we love, we will love only what we understand, and we will understand only what we are taught”.

The impact of man does not have to be and is not always negative. If we understand the threats to biodiversity and their effects, we can reduce our impact and improve our biodiversity management. Conservation efforts in recent decades have made a significant difference to the current state of biodiversity. More than 100,000 protected areas, including national parks, wildlife refuges, game reserves and marine protected areas, administered by both governments and local communities, provide habitat for wildlife and improve the status of biodiversity. Also in many cases improvements in environmental policies at local, regional and global scale have improved the state of conservation of many ecosystems. We need to continue to move forward and there is much to be done at the level of environmental policies to reduce our impact on biodiversity. But we must not forget that our decisions about our lifestyle can also have a great effect on the impact on biodiversity and the environment.