About the Week
What is the theme for Scottish Biodiversity Week 2010?
Biodiversity is Life.
Biodiversity is Our Life.
The livelihoods of 6.5 billion people are sustained by ecosystems containing almost 2 million known species.
The welfare of humankind is utterly dependent on this web of life.
- Crops and animals feed us.
- Forests regulate water supplies and provide fuel.
- Oceans provide food and help regulate climate and
- Biodiversity is a source of cultural and spiritual wealth for indigenous and city people alike.
Yet only a fraction of life has been “discovered” – less than 10%. There could up to 90 million species on the planet.
But all this life is disappearing at an astonishing rate.
According to the Global Biodiversity Outlook 130 species become extinct each day. That’s over 1,000 times higher than the natural extinction rate.
Faced by these frightening rates of loss, future generations many have nothing left video clips to remind them of long dead species.
Protected lands show accelerating species extinctions and loss of habitat throughout the 21st century. Alarmed by these trends, the United Nations has declared 2010 the International Year of Biodiversity.
“Our lives depend on biological diversity. Species and ecosystems are disappearing at an unsustainable rate. We humans are the cause. The consequences for economies and people will be profound”.
Ban Ki-Moon, the United Nations Secretary General
Threatened with extinction:
12% of birds
21% of mammals
28% of reptiles
30% of amphibians
35% of invertebrates
37% of freshwater fish
70% of plants
Habitat loss such as deforestation is the single greatest pressure on biodiversity world wide.
Conversion of forests to palm oil production for example leads to loss of three quarters of butterfly and bird species alone.
Invasive species mostly introduced by humans are responsible for 40% of all animal extinctions for which the cause is known.
Pollution from farms, pesticide and fertilizer runoff is causing deadzones in lakes and seas. Over 200 were reported in 2006.
Unsustainable use has caused three quarters of the world’s fishing grounds to be fully exploited or over exploited.
For many species a changing climate might be the tipping point.
Climate change has emerged in this century as one of the most important threats to biodiversity. Experts predict that by the end of the century 30% of all species – plants and animals – may disappear, just owing to climate change.
Ahmed Djoghlaf, Executive Secretary, Convention on Biological Diversity
Whole ecosystems in which species live are under threat too.
Already one quarter of the earth’s land area is undergoing degradation.
Half the world’s wetlands have been drained.
And some scientists predict that ocean acidification and rising temperatures could devastate marine life, including the total loss of our coral reefs by 2050.
Nature works as a system and therefore when you take parts of the system out, if you remove certain species, you do not know what impact it will have on the ecosystems.
Achim Steiner, Executive Director, United Nations Environment Programme
It is our life support. It is the source of our food, water, medicine, the clothes we wear and of course an awful lot of spiritual comfort.
The United Nations General Assembly has declared 2010 the International Year of Biodiversity.
This is our chance to resolve to safeguarding and repairing our life support system. And not just for its beauty and wonder.
Across the world there are countless examples of where the value of biodiversity, species and the ecosystems in which they live benefit us all:
- Biodiversity is at the heart of the world’s second biggest industry – tourism, generating 944 U.S. dollars a year.
- Biodiversity inspires scientists too – the lotus leaf has a structure so fine it repels almost any liquid. The principle is being adapted to coat ship hulls to increase speed.
- In Indonesia, protecting mangroves and trees forms a barrier to cyclones.
- Watersheds that keep their cover such as in Costa Rica or in New York State for example keep clean water flowing to cities and farms.
- And protected areas, full of life, also function to minimize climate change.
- Forests alone account for 15% of the world’s carbon stock.
Safeguarding nature promotes synergies that generate multiple global benefit; saving species creates jobs, protects people and boosts local economies.
It is a cost efficient way to address a lot of problems all at the same time.
In Nagoya, Japan, a new international regime of access and benefit sharing of genetic resources will make a major contribution to achieving the Millennium Development Goals through alleviating poverty.
Parks and wild spaces can transform urban areas from one of the biggest threats to biodiversity to one of the most significant solutions both for species and for human well being.
The spiritual and cultural value of biodiversity is at the heart of many human societies and inspired by biodiversity children in over 50 countries are taking part in the Green Wave tree planting programme.
The planet’s natural resources, biodiversity, provides our wealth, our health, our food and fuel.
If future generations have only video recordings of long dead species and vanished habitats then all our livelihoods, our very existence is put in peril.
The time to act is now.
Transcript from the International Year of Biodiversity video produced by the Convention on Biological Diversity. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1VYmpTikgw.
