Biodiversity is the World Now Waking Up

With the recent Biodiversity summit addressing the needs of wildlife are we finally waking up to Natures needs? Alternatively, is this another global initiative where we sign up to different arbitrary targets which the countries of the world will not meet?

We are aware of our fundamental need to understand nature from an academic point of view preparing the next generation of scholars to conserve our natural world, helping us address how to live with it. When linking this to other academic disciplines such as agriculture and food production, we have to understand how we both produce the resources we need sustainably. However, what do we need from nature other than what we produce, such as; the living and non-living environment.

A leading issue, however, is although many of us are becoming increasingly aware of our impact on nature, we need to do more seventy-five percent of the Earth's surface has been directly affected by human needs and endeavours leaving nature only small pockets of unaffected areas left. Many scientists argue to this degree that we are in the next mass extinction of our planet. Once an exceedingly large number of the world's animals and plants have gone extinct in short succession, this has led to the classification of a Mass Extinction. The planet has already gone through five, and we are arguably in the sixth due to human impacts. The question then that the UN biodiversity report aims to prevent is the rapid extinction of many of these species within the next decade.

Now, why is this fundamentally we do not live sustainably within the environment you only have to look at recent events such as starting to move toward a low plastic world but then once face-masks became the norm an equally damaging incarnation replaced the old litter. Often the lack of care taken for our planet will vary well have far-reaching impacts if we do not have the care to act soon, and this varies from the individual citizen to the large corporations. Now alongside a duty of stewardship for our planet, we have to reflect on both trends which are impacting the Earth the loss of forests as well as valuable topsoil due to desertification and deforestation. This accompanied with 2020s most talked about crisis the coronavirus has highlighted how interconnected we are to the fragile ecosystems of the world, and we ignore the signs at our peril. By often trading in exotic animals and low standards of biosecurity and welfare, we increase the risk of zoonoses and disease emergence.

Now in the case of some animals, if they can adapt, they may well survive the impacts we have had on their populations such as the African Elephant which has displayed changes in the tusk length due to natural selection now favouring short tusked individuals due to increases in poaching of the long tusked individuals. Now whilst plants and animals that we use are abundant in terms of their number, we use relatively small varieties focusing on select families of plants and animals for given functions. This is because they fit our demands for them. However, we also do not know what other discoveries await us, and we must ensure that we leave ourselves the opportunity to do this as a move toward a more sustainable direction. To delve into more detail of how we can do this, we must address both sustainable measures, locally, nationally and internationally.