What is Biodiversity and Why is it Important to Protect it?
Image credits: SGR via Unsplash.
Every May 22, we celebrate the International Day of Biological Diversity. It’s the perfect moment to stop and reflect on the life that surrounds us every day. Why? Because biodiversity is in crisis. And when biodiversity has a problem, humanity has a problem, as the UN pointed out.
The Maroon Bells in Colorado. We have family photos taken at the same spot for more than a decade. A reminder that humans change but nature can stay the same, if we protect it.
So what is biodiversity? I think of it in two ways: variations between species, and variations within a species. Variations between species underlie the gorgeous spectrum of life on this planet, from the tiniest microbes to massive forests of aspen trees (which can be a single organism!).
💡 Picture the sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and textures of a rainforest, and you’re picturing interspecies diversity.
To explore intraspecies variation, just check out the people around you. We humans are a single species, but we come in a variety of shapes, sizes, and physiologies. Or think about the cats or dogs that you know—they’re all the same species, but they’re quite different from each other.
Biodiversity gives us more than moments of beauty and wonder. It underlies our food production, across water, land, and air. Biodiversity drives the ecosystems that support our air and our water. Biotechnologies are drawing back the veil on the molecular and cellular biodiversity of this planet, leading to powerful bio-inspired approaches to the world’s biggest challenges.
However, thanks to human activity, today we are witnessing a catastrophic loss of biodiversity. The rate of extinction is accelerating—and the extinctions that we manage to measure are certainly an underestimate, since we don’t know what we don’t know.
The last mass extinction event on Earth happened 65 million years ago. You probably know it as the day the dinosaurs died, but they weren’t alone: something like 50% of the species on the entire Earth were thought to have been wiped out in that cataclysm.
Today humanity is driving a catastrophe that could reach a similar scale. Not an unavoidable asteroid strike, but human activity, will continue to cause massive biodiversity loss. And even if resurrection biology makes huge strides in the near future, we won’t be able to de-extinct those lost species fast enough to avoid massive disruption to our planet (and not the good kind of disruption).
As a biologist, I certainly understand that species come and species go. But what’s happening today is different. It’s happening because our agriculture, cities, industries, and energy systems were designed to deliver certain benefits to certain people.
💡 What got us to today is not going to get us to tomorrow, and beyond.
I believe that we can build a more resilient and sustainable future that benefits not only more people, but more species. We are far from the only living things on this planet that matter. As the dominant intelligent species here, we have deep obligations of stewardship toward life on our planet—and wherever the future takes us.
A flock of Galapagos blue foot boobies taken during a trip to the Galapagos in 2021. Click here to read about my blog on birds and biodiversity.
💡 What will our legacy be? The decisions that we make today and in the coming years will determine our legacy.
For now, I’m keeping my eyes on the UN’s global biodiversity framework, and on efforts to place concrete economic value on biodiversity. This is a massive problem that deserves humanity’s best creativity and determination.
Life on Earth is so beautiful, so surprising, so … weird! And as far as we know, our planet is the only place in the entire universe that hosts living things. Whether or not you believe that we’re alone in the cosmos, I hope you can draw inspiration from the wonder of the natural world—and take steps to protect it.
About Tiffany
Dr. Tiffany Vora speaks, writes, and advises on how to harness technology to build the best possible future(s). She is an expert in biotech, health, & innovation.
For a full list of topics and ways to collaborate, visit Tiffany’s Work Together webpage.
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