essay on global biodiversity

Loading metrics

Open Access

Essays articulate a specific perspective on a topic of broad interest to scientists.

See all article types »

Scaling up area-based conservation to implement the Global Biodiversity Framework’s 30x30 target: The role of Nature’s Strongholds

Roles Conceptualization, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Methodology, Project administration, Supervision, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

* E-mail: [email protected]

Affiliation Wildlife Conservation Society, Bronx, New York, United States of America

Roles Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Methodology, Software, Writing – original draft

Roles Formal analysis, Methodology, Software, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation 34 Kibo Lane, Karen, Kenya

Roles Conceptualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation Equilibrium Research, Bristol, United Kingdom

Roles Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

Roles Data curation, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Methodology, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation Andes-Amazon Initiative, Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Palo Alto, California, United States of America

Roles Data curation, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation Wildlife Conservation Society Brasil, Manaus, Amazonas, Brazil

Roles Conceptualization, Formal analysis, Methodology, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

Affiliations Center for Ecosystem Science, School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of New South Wales, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, Bush Heritage Australia, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

Roles Writing – review & editing

Affiliation World Wide Fund for Nature International, Gland, Switzerland

Roles Data curation, Methodology, Writing – original draft

Affiliations Wildlife Conservation Society Congo, Brazzaville, Republic of Congo, Biological and Environmental Sciences, University of Stirling, Stirling, United Kingdom

Roles Conceptualization, Data curation

Affiliation Global Environmental Facility, Washington, DC, United States of America

Roles Conceptualization, Writing – original draft

Affiliations Wildlife Conservation Society, Bronx, New York, United States of America, World Commission on Protected Areas, International Union for Conservation of Nature, Gland, Switzerland

Roles Conceptualization, Data curation, Methodology, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

Roles Conceptualization, Funding acquisition, Methodology

•  [ ... ],

Affiliation School of The Environment, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

• [ view all ]
• [ view less ]
• John G. Robinson, 
• Danielle LaBruna, 
• Tim O’Brien, 
• Peter J. Clyne, 
• Nigel Dudley, 
• Sandy J. Andelman, 
• Elizabeth L. Bennett, 
• Avecita Chicchon, 
• Carlos Durigan, 

Published: May 21, 2024

• https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3002613
• Reader Comments

The Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), signed in 2022 by Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity, recognized the importance of area-based conservation, and its goals and targets specify the characteristics of protected and conserved areas (PCAs) that disproportionately contribute to biodiversity conservation. To achieve the GBF’s target of conserving a global area of 30% by 2030, this Essay argues for recognizing these characteristics and scaling them up through the conservation of areas that are: extensive (typically larger than 5,000 km 2 ); have interconnected PCAs (either physically or as part of a jurisdictional network, and frequently embedded in larger conservation landscapes); have high ecological integrity; and are effectively managed and equitably governed. These areas are presented as “Nature’s Strongholds,” illustrated by examples from the Congo and Amazon basins. Conserving Nature’s Strongholds offers an approach to scale up initiatives to address global threats to biodiversity.

Citation: Robinson JG, LaBruna D, O’Brien T, Clyne PJ, Dudley N, Andelman SJ, et al. (2024) Scaling up area-based conservation to implement the Global Biodiversity Framework’s 30x30 target: The role of Nature’s Strongholds. PLoS Biol 22(5): e3002613. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3002613

Copyright: © 2024 Robinson et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Funding: Wildlife Conservation Society received support for this work from the Acacia Conservation Fund and the Arcadia Fund (Grant number #AE4195), private philanthropic organizations. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish or preparation of the manuscript.

Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Abbreviations: CBD, Convention on Biological Diversity; CII, Contextual Intactness Index; EU, European Union; GBF, Global Biodiversity Framework; GBMF, Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation; ITT, indigenous and traditional territory; IUCN, International Union for the Conservation of Nature; JCU, jaguar conservation unit; KLC, Key Landscapes for Conservation; METT, Management Effectiveness Tracking Tool; NGO, non-governmental organization; OECM, other effective area-based conservation measure; PCA, protected and conserved area; WCS, Wildlife Conservation Society

Introduction

The Kunming–Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), adopted at the 15th meeting of the Conference of Parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in Montreal [ 1 ], recognized the importance of area-based conservation to deliver on the overarching biodiversity goal of the GBF (Goal A): “The integrity, connectivity, and resilience of all ecosystems are maintained, enhanced, or restored, substantially increasing the area of natural ecosystems by 2050.” Area-based conservation refers collectively to the use of both “protected areas,” as recognized by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and CBD, and “other effective area-based conservation measures” (OECMs) [ 2 ].

The goal of protecting at least 30% of global land and ocean by 2030 (the 30x30 target) emerged from scientific studies that argue that greater area-based ambition is a necessary component of conservation policies if the loss of biodiversity is to be halted [ 3 – 6 ], and has been promoted by advocacy campaigns [ 7 , 8 ]. GBF Target 3 ( Box 1 ) ambitiously builds upon and extends Aichi Target 11 [ 2 ], which specified a goal of protecting “at least 17 per cent of terrestrial and 10 per cent of coastal and marine areas,” made up of “protected areas and other effective area-based conservation measures.” Under the Aichi targets, there was significant growth in the area under protection but more limited gains in biodiversity protection [ 9 ].

Box 1. Characteristics of protected and conserved areas identified in the Global Biodiversity Framework as important for biodiversity conservation

To deliver on its biodiversity goal, the Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) has explicit targets.

• GBF Target 1 addresses the need for effective planning and management and equitable governance. It seeks to “ensure that all areas are under participatory, integrated and biodiversity inclusive spatial planning and/or effective management processes addressing land- and sea-use change, to bring the loss of areas of high biodiversity importance, including ecosystems of high ecological integrity, close to zero by 2030, while respecting the rights of indigenous peoples and local communities.” It also prioritizes the ecological integrity of conservation areas.
• GBF Target 2 seeks to “ensure that by 2030 at least 30% of areas of degraded terrestrial, inland water, and coastal marine ecosystems are under effective restoration, in order to enhance biodiversity and ecosystem functions and services, ecological integrity and connectivity.” This target, among other considerations, notes that connectivity and ecological integrity are integral to area-based conservation.
• GBF Target 3 formally links a strategy for area-based conservation to the biodiversity outcomes of the numerical target of conserving 30% of the globe by 2030. Protected and conserved areas need to be effectively managed and equitably governed, interconnected, and embedded in larger conservation landscapes. Protected and conserved areas explicitly include both traditional protected areas and “other effective area-based conservation measures.” The target is to “ensure and enable that by 2030 at least 30 per cent of terrestrial, inland water, and of coastal and marine areas, especially areas of particular importance for biodiversity and ecosystem functions and services, are effectively conserved and managed through ecologically representative, well-connected and equitably governed systems of protected areas and other effective area-based conservation measures… and integrated into wider landscapes and seascapes…”.

A consensus around conserving 30% by 2030 gained political momentum leading up to the UN CBD Biodiversity Conference (COP15) in November 2022. On assuming office in 2021, President Biden issued an Executive Order that committed the United States to the goal of conserving 30% of its lands and waters by 2030 [ 10 ]. In June 2021, the G7 members committed in their Nature Compact “to conserve or protect at least 30% of global land and at least 30% of the global ocean by 2030.” In the build up to COP15, over 100 countries joined the High Ambition Coalition to champion the 30x30 target [ 11 ], and over 70 countries joined the Global Ocean Alliance [ 12 ]. This enthusiasm has also translated into increased funding: In addition to commitments made at COP15, the “Protecting our Planet Challenge” was launched at the UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) in Glasgow and represents a $5 billion commitment to support the protection of at least 30% of the planet in the most important areas for biodiversity by 2030 [ 13 ]; and in June 2023, the Council of the Global Environmental Facility approved plans to establish the Global Biodiversity Fund to support implementation of the GBF. The efficacy for biodiversity conservation of the 30x30 target depends on where protected areas are located, and how they are configured and managed [ 14 ].

The GBF has specified the characteristics of protected and conserved areas (PCAs) that are important for biodiversity conservation ( Box 1 ). In this Essay, we consider these characteristics and identify 4 criteria that we argue should be prioritized and scaled up in order to strengthen biodiversity outcomes: PCAs should be extensive; interconnected (either physically or as part of a jurisdictional network, and frequently embedded in larger landscapes); have high ecological integrity; and be effectively managed and equitably governed. We suggest that specific areas that incorporate all 4 criteria, areas that we call “Nature’s Strongholds,” are disproportionately important for the conservation of biodiversity and need to be prioritized for safeguarding if the mission of the GBF is to be achieved. Using these criteria, we look at how to identify such strongholds, providing examples in the river basins of Central Africa and the Amazon. These regions are both high-biodiversity tropical forest regions with a tradition of area-based conservation, but they exhibit variation in the size of single or mosaics of PCAs, the extent of the conservation landscape in which strongholds are embedded, the pattern of ecological integrity across the area, and PCA management and governance regimes.

Characteristics contributing to area-based conservation of biodiversity

Size of pcas.

The species-area curve, a fundamental ecological relationship, describes that as the size of an area increases, the extent of natural habitat and the number of species present also increase. Conversely, biodiversity can be lost simply as the area of natural habitat is diminished [ 15 ], or through the differential loss of ecosystems and their associated species and biological communities [ 5 , 16 ]. More generally, the loss of large, contiguous natural areas drives biodiversity loss [ 17 – 20 ].

Conservation areas retain natural habitat, but creating large PCAs does not by itself produce biodiversity outcomes: they need to be located in the right places [ 21 ]. Conservation areas should be located in geographic areas that contain abundant biodiversity and connected to similar areas. Nevertheless, increasing the size and compactness of single PCAs or mosaics of PCAs decreases the proportion of natural habitat located close to areas that are unprotected or have other land uses, making them less vulnerable to many anthropogenic stressors, including climate change [ 22 ]. Large PCAs can also contain many natural habitats and the ecological and evolutionary processes that sustain them.

Connectivity of areas

The terms “connectivity” and “well-connected systems,” as referenced in the GBF, we interpret as referring to both the physical or ecological connectivity of natural areas (such as PCAs that are physically contiguous or linked through corridors) and to management connectivity (such as multiple PCAs that might not be physically contiguous but are linked jurisdictionally and embedded in a larger natural landscape matrix, providing for ecological connectivity and management across jurisdictional boundaries). Connectivity, as a result of either condition, allows the movement of species across the landscape and seascape, increasing effective population sizes, and allows animals, especially those with behavioral flexibility, to have access to suitable environmental conditions in the context of climate change and sufficient resources even in times of ecological stress [ 23 – 25 ]. Conversely, the fragmentation of natural habitats and the loss of connectivity across a landscape is strongly associated with the loss of biodiversity [ 26 , 27 ]. Fragmentation changes ecological processes, and smaller habitat fragments have less biodiversity than would be expected from the loss of habitat alone [ 28 ].

Aggregations or mosaics of PCAs under multiple jurisdictions would allow the alignment of conservation goals across larger areas. Defining what categories of PCAs should be included in these mosaics so as to meet the GBF 30x30 target [ 29 ] remains a work in progress. There is a good consensus that all 6 IUCN categories of protected areas (Ia, strict nature reserve; Ib, wilderness area; II, national park; III, natural monument; IV, habitat or species management area; V, protected landscape or seascape; VI, protected areas with sustainable use of natural resources) should be included, although they are not simply interchangeable. Furthermore, they should demonstrably deliver on biodiversity outcomes [ 30 ]. Because effectiveness of protected areas is typically measured by their attaining management objectives rather than achieving biodiversity conservation [ 31 ], this is not always the case [ 32 – 35 ].

OECMs might also be included and contribute to the 30x30 target [ 14 , 36 ]. OECMs, in contrast to traditional protected areas, are governed by many different authorities, from national governments to private entities and civil society, to indigenous peoples and local communities, and might include indigenous and traditional territories (ITTs). Ongoing work by the IUCN, and specifically its World Commission on Protected Areas, seeks to establish a recognized method to define types of OECMs [ 37 ] and assess their possible contribution to reaching the 30x30 target.

Including the category of OECMs in the 30x30 target would enable countries to more easily attain biodiversity conservation goals. OECMs, by definition (CBD Decision COP XIV/8, 2018) explicitly contribute to biodiversity conservation [ 38 ]: An OECM is “a geographically defined area other than a Protected Area, which is governed and managed in ways that achieve positive and sustained long-term outcomes for the in situ conservation of biodiversity, with associated ecosystem functions and services and where applicable, cultural, spiritual, socioeconomic, and other locally relevant values.” In their delivery of biodiversity outcomes, OECMs can be favorably compared to formally protected areas. A series of detailed studies in Amazonia have compared deforestation and degradation rates among different categories of conserved and managed areas. ITTs compared favorably with areas under national jurisdiction and those supporting extractive activities [ 39 – 42 ]. A similar pattern is evident globally [ 43 , 44 ]. In addition, these areas have an extensive geographic distribution. ITTs, in particular, cover a large proportion of the planet and overlap with 40% of protected areas [ 45 ]. They overlap extensive areas of intact forest landscapes [ 46 ] and the ranges of many species, including those that are endangered [ 47 ].

While many existing areas under the jurisdiction of indigenous peoples and local communities have the potential to be recognized as OECMs, including such OECMs in the 30x30 tally will require that local customs are followed and/or will need to be approved by the relevant Indigenous peoples and local community actors through processes that respect human rights obligations [ 48 ], including free prior and informed consent and equitable benefit sharing and governance.

Degree of ecological integrity

The concept of ecological integrity became a part of ecology’s lexicon with Aldo Leopold’s comment: “A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise” [ 49 ]. While there are different approaches to defining ecological integrity, there is general agreement that it can be characterized by the structure, composition, and function of natural ecosystems [ 50 , 51 ]. Efforts to quantitatively describe and measure ecological integrity have depended on measuring some characteristic of ecosystems that can be used as a proxy for integrity, be it structural (such as forest extent, the degree of fragmentation, or the size and frequency distribution of live trees), compositional (such as species occurrence and community composition), or functional (such as net primary productivity or energy and nutrient cycling) [ 52 ]. An alternative approach is quantifying measures of human pressure or modification of natural systems that are considered to systematically influence integrity (e.g., population density, land-use change, roads, extractive industries, light pollution) [ 53 , 54 ]. The first approach has been most useful at local and regional scales, where such direct measurement is more feasible. The second has had utility at more global scales, where proxies for pressure are available [ 17 , 20 ].

In response to the needs of the GBF for measures of integrity to study, manage, and report on biodiversity change, a hybrid approach to generate integrity indicators has gained traction. It combines measures of human pressure or modification with modeled measures of ecosystem properties, often based on remote sensing and/or direct observations [ 55 ]. For example, the Forest Landscape Integrity Index was developed on the basis of observed human pressure at a landscape level and then used to model loss of forest connectivity [ 56 ]. Similarly, the Contextual Intactness Index (CII) used the Human Footprint to infer a biodiversity value based on geographically explicit species occurrence from museum collections [ 33 ]. Methods have also been developed that combine measures of human pressure with empirical measurements of biodiversity across multiple scales [ 57 ]. For the GBF, the most useful indicators of ecological integrity should have a global application and a temporal resolution that enables periodic monitoring [ 58 ].

Within a given ecosystem, ecological integrity is a good predictor of high biodiversity [ 59 ] and is clearly important for climate adaptation [ 60 , 61 ]. Conversely, loss of habitat and connectivity results in loss of ecological integrity, which erodes biodiversity [ 62 ]. The major driver of these patterns is that the loss of ecological integrity increases the probabilities of local extinction [ 19 ]. For example, high-integrity tropical rainforests, as measured by structural intactness, are associated with lower risks of species extinction for tropical mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians across all biogeographic realms [ 27 ], and ecological integrity of Southeast Asian tropical forests can be used to predict actual extirpations of megafauna during the Holocene and/or Anthropocene [ 63 ].

PCA management and governance

While the GBF does not define when an area is “effectively managed,” traditionally the term has been interpreted as reflecting the extent to which the goals and objectives for the area are achieved [ 64 ]. Many studies have examined the constraints of effective management for conservation areas (e.g., the need for adequate funding [ 65 ], capacity shortfalls [ 66 ], and adequate personnel [ 67 ]). A widely used self-reporting tool to monitor protected areas is the Management Effectiveness Tracking Tool (METT) [ 68 ].

While many studies have demonstrated that protected areas are important for biodiversity conservation [ 69 ], few studies have directly measured the importance of management effectiveness per se. One such study reported that species populations in protected areas were positively associated with the area’s METT score [ 70 ]. The authors then went on to argue that “documenting the delivery of biodiversity outcomes must be an explicit part of any future assessment of effectiveness” [ 71 ].

The GBF also urges that areas be “equitably governed.” While scientific assessments of the extent to which and how protected areas meet this requirement are still largely lacking, CBD Decision COP XIV/8, Annex II (2018) provides guidance on how this might be measured: appropriate procedures should be in place to ensure that the diversity of “rights holders” and stakeholders are recognized, that rule making and decision-making are inclusive, and the costs and benefits are equitably shared. Effective governance requires that “duty bearers” provide timely and competent assistance to rights holders. Dudley and colleagues argue that conserved and managed areas should only be recognized as contributing to the 30x30 target when authorities or duty bearers recognize and respect rights holders and stakeholders, and provide the ecosystem services to meet human needs [ 30 ]. Tools are becoming available for measuring the effectiveness of governance and social outcomes in PCAs [ 72 – 75 ]. The expectation is that when this is the case, the “conserved and managed” areas of GBF Target 3 will have greater permanence through political and legal support, greater stakeholder buy-in, and access to more financial and other resources. There is some supporting data for this expectation [ 76 ].

Identifying Nature’s Strongholds

How these characteristics affect biodiversity conservation will vary geographically and ecologically. The identification of Nature’s Strongholds will be affected, in a specific region, by the size and distribution of PCAs, the continuity or fragmentation of the natural matrix, the spatial pattern of ecological integrity, and the existing governance and management regimes. In considering their application to the Central African and Amazonian river basins, our 2 case studies, we interpreted the characteristics as follows, and defined explicit criteria that were appropriate for these 2 regions.

• Large protected and conserved areas. Our assumption was that PCAs needed to be large enough to maintain biodiversity. There is no consensus around the desired size of PCAs, but a range of sizes have been proposed. To protect functioning ecosystems, the IUCN established a global Standard for Key Biodiversity Areas [ 77 ] and suggested a possible size threshold of 10,000 km 2 . More of a focus on tropical regions has defined the work of some other organizations: the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) has structured its area-based work around areas with a minimum size of 5,000 km 2 [ 78 ]; the German Government’s “Legacy Landscapes” program [ 79 ] suggests a minimum of 2,000 km 2 ; and African Parks, a non-governmental organization (NGO) focused on park management, identified “core anchor areas” in Africa of disproportionate importance for biodiversity conservation, with a minimum size of 500 km 2 . For the case studies, we gave preference to larger areas, and arbitrarily identified PCAs (single or as aggregations) that were approximately 5,000 km 2 or larger.
• Interconnected areas. In addition to identifying strongholds where a PCA was sufficiently large, we looked for groups of PCAs that were physically or ecologically contiguous, thus creating a larger conservation area, and groups of PCAs that, although not physically contiguous, were embedded in the same conservation landscape, often with jurisdictional commonalities and management coordination across the landscape. In both Central Africa and Amazonia, the definition and identification of strongholds was aided by their being embedded within larger “Key Landscapes for Conservation” (KLCs), which had previously been identified in studies supported by the European Union (EU) [ 80 , 81 ]. In addition, to inform their philanthropy, the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation (GBMF) has identified a suite of conservation landscapes in Amazonia [ 82 ] that generally align with the EU analysis. The resulting landscapes that contained identified strongholds were large. In Central Africa, the average size was 62,257 km 2 ( n = 16) and in Amazonia, the average size was 217,488 km 2 ( n = 14).
• Effectively managed and equitably governed PCAs. Systems of governance and management vary in different parts of the world, and the criteria associated with PCAs will always be politically and culturally specific. In Central Africa, national government agencies typically retain authority over most PCAs (including national parks, nature reserves, faunal reserves, and wildlife reserves), although devolved authority characterizes community reserves, forest management units, and local community forest concessions. In addition, collaborative management partnerships through an agreement between government and international or national NGOs are increasingly common. In Amazonia, in addition to PCAs managed by national governments (e.g., national parks, wildlife reserves), PCAs managed by states and municipalities are common. Devolved authority to a local level characterizes extractive reserves, ITTs, and sustainable development reserves. Further management and governance criteria used to identify strongholds are described below separately for Central Africa and Amazonia.
• High ecological integrity. We used Mokany and colleagues’ [ 33 ] CII to measure ecological integrity. The index infers a biodiversity value and uses the Human Footprint [ 53 ] to assess human impact. We did not use ecological integrity in the initial identification of strongholds, as we had no a priori rationale for defining a minimum level of integrity for strongholds. Nevertheless, we expected that ecological integrity would covary with the other characteristics. Therefore, once strongholds were identified using the first 3 criteria, we compared their integrity to that of the conservation landscapes in which they were embedded and compared the integrity of the landscapes to the river basin as whole. A possible stronghold where its ecological integrity was lower than the landscape in which it was embedded was not included.

Case study 1: Nature’s Strongholds in Central Africa

Identification of Nature’s Strongholds in Central Africa initially depended on 3 of the criteria: large single or mosaics of PCAs of approximately 5,000 km 2 or larger, embedded within previously defined conservation landscapes, with demonstrably effective management and a commitment to equitable governance. The process was also informed by previous analyses of priority areas and management effectiveness [ 80 , 83 , 84 ], any international recognition (such as by a World Heritage Site designation), and expert opinion from managers of PCAs.

To delineate strongholds, we were helped by reference to the EU conservation strategy for Africa “Larger than Elephants” [ 80 ], which identified KLCs, including 20 in Central Africa. KLCs bounded individual strongholds, which could be single or multiple jurisdictional distinct PCAs within a single KLC (some large KLCs that crossed national boundaries were subdivided; see S1 Text ). Table 1 lists the KLCs which contained identified strongholds (see S1 Text ). Identified strongholds frequently included multiple PCAs.

• PPT PowerPoint slide
• PNG larger image
• TIFF original image

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3002613.t001

Within a KLC, PCAs were grouped into strongholds if their physical or jurisdictional configuration, management, funding, or institutional context were aligned. In some cases (e.g., Odzala Kakoua, CAF 03c in Fig 1 ), individual PCAs were sufficiently large to define a stronghold, in others (e.g., Gamba complex, CAF 04 in Fig 1 ), individual PCAs were contiguous forming a mosaic, and in still others (e.g., PCAs in CAF 03d in Fig 1 ), where PCAs were not contiguous, they occurred in a single conservation landscape with jurisdictional links and management across the landscape. One alignment, and an indication of more effective management, is if there is a significant management partnership between national governments and international NGOs (see Table 1 ), with the concomitant international donor funding that comes with these relationships. Africa has been in the forefront of defining collaborative management models [ 83 ]. Conservation management partnerships offer a range of governance mechanisms between governments, local communities, private entities, and NGOs, sometimes involving joint ventures and delegated management authority [ 85 , 86 ].

KLCs and Nature’s Strongholds in Central Africa (EU identified KLCs numbered, embedded protected and conserved areas constitute the identified strongholds) mapped onto ecological integrity of the region, as measured by the CII. Data layers used are listed in S1 Text . AOI, area of interest; CII, Contextual Intactness Index; EU, European Union; KLC, Key Landscapes for Conservation.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3002613.g001

Comparisons of CII values of strongholds and their surrounding KLCs were used to confirm the identification of individual strongholds. In all cases, with 1 exception, the ecological integrity of identified strongholds was greater than the KLCs in which they were embedded. In the exception, the mean CII of Bouba Ndjida-Benoue KLC (CAF 17) was 0.73, while the mean CII values for the 2 PCAs in the stronghold, Bouba Ndjida in northern Cameroon and Sena Oura in Chad, were lower (0.68 and 0.42, respectively); this potential stronghold was therefore not included. In 2 other cases (Mt. Cameroon in CAF 01 and Mayumba in CAF 04), CII values of individual PCAs were lower than for the KLC, but the stronghold as a whole was higher, so the strongholds were retained.

In total, we identified 18 strongholds in Central Africa (average size = 15,003 km 2 ). Each was located within a KLC and included one or more PCAs, often not physically contiguous. Possible strongholds were excluded if: PCAs, either singly or as aggregations, were much smaller than 5,000 km 2 ; they fell outside of KLCs; there was little evidence of effective management or good governance; and the stronghold had a lower ecological integrity than the surrounding KLC. Identified strongholds and their surrounding KLCs were mapped onto the geographic distribution of ecological integrity across the basin, using the CII [ 33 , 87 ] ( Fig 1 ). Identifying strongholds is a work in progress, and currently excluded areas could meet the criteria in the future through ecological restoration, provision of adequate funding and staffing, and strengthening management and good governance.

To make the overall case that strongholds (or their constituent PCAs) are more ecologically intact than the KLCs in which they are embedded (excluding the area of the stronghold itself), we used principal component analysis to compare, for all 1 km grid cells, the CII, the standard deviation of CII, and the land area with values scaled to have a mean of 0 and a variance of 1 (see Fig 2 , S1 Text , and S1 Table ). The first component is most heavily weighted toward the CII itself (0.893), followed by decreasing standard deviation of CII (−0.654), and the size of KLCs and strongholds (0.406). This means that higher values of ecological integrity are associated with larger areas and lower variance of ecological integrity. The second component is primarily weighted by size of the area (0.846), followed by increasing standard deviation of CII (0.650), and least by the CII itself (0.091). This means that larger areas have a higher variance in ecological integrity, but are no more intact than smaller areas. Each axis accounts for similar levels of variance in the data: 46.3% for principal component 1 and 38.2% for principal component 2, for a total of 84.5% of the total variance. Ecological integrity is higher in larger KLCs than smaller, and less variable in larger KLCs ( Fig 2 ). By contrast, larger strongholds are not more ecologically intact than smaller ones. These observations were confirmed using paired t tests, which indicates that strongholds have both a higher average ecological integrity and a lower variance in ecological integrity than the KLCs in which they were embedded (see S1 Text ).

Principal component analysis for Strongholds (filled squares, dashed oval) and Central African KLCs (filled circles, solid oval). Principal component 1 (PC1), which is most heavily weighted towards the CII, is plotted against principal component 2 (PC2), which is most heavily weighted towards land area. The ovals highlight the distribution of points in the stronghold class and the KLC class. They serve to easily show the degree of separation and are not a statistical representation. CII, Contextual Intactness Index; KLC, Key Landscapes for Conservation.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3002613.g002

We also looked at whether KLCs that contained identified strongholds were more ecologically intact than the Congo Basin as a whole (see S1 Text and S2 Table ), and concluded that strongholds were of higher ecological integrity than the KLCs in which they are embedded, and combined KLCs (including embedded strongholds) are of higher ecological integrity than the Congo Basin as a whole.

To demonstrate that the distribution of large-bodied mammals (another proxy for biodiversity) maps onto Nature’s Strongholds, we examined the geographic distribution of forest elephants and great apes in Central Africa ( S3 Table ). The forest elephant ( Loxodonta cyclotis ) population was last estimated [ 88 ] at 24,119 ± 2,865, with an additional 87,190 to 103,355 in areas not systematically surveyed. Nine of the 32 identified strongholds contained populations numbering in the thousands, and 8 more had populations numbering in the hundreds. Similarly, Great Ape populations are found in strongholds [ 89 ]. Over 95% of the world’s remaining Cross River gorillas are found in Cross River and Takamanda parks, which also contain a population of the Nigeria-Cameroon chimpanzee ( Pan troglodytes elliotii ). The Western Lowland gorilla ( Gorilla gorilla gorilla ) and the Central chimpanzee ( Pan troglodytes troglodytes ) are found in strongholds and KLCs in Gabon, Cameroon, and the Republic of Congo; the Grauer’s gorilla ( Gorilla beringei graueri ) and the Eastern chimpanzee ( Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii ) are found especially in strongholds in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo; and the bonobo ( Pan paniscus) is largely restricted to the Democratic Republic of Congo protected areas of Lomami and Salonga.

Case study 2: Nature’s Strongholds in Amazonia

Nature’s Strongholds in Amazonia were identified using similar criteria to those for Central Africa. To delineate strongholds, we referred to the EU “Larger than Jaguars” conservation strategy for Latin America [ 81 ], which defined KLCs for Amazonia, and to the GBMF-identified conservation landscapes in the Amazon basin [ 82 ].

Within these larger landscapes, strongholds were identified if PCAs were large or could be grouped into larger aggregations, were interconnected, and were effectively managed and governed. In Amazonia, in contrast to Central Africa, in all cases, aggregations of individual PCAs were always physically contiguous. PCAs included protected areas, ITTs, sustainable development reserves, extractive reserves, and other conservation areas. Table 2 lists the KLCs and GBMF mosaics, which contain identified strongholds.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3002613.t002

As a proxy for management effectiveness and good governance, strongholds were identified particularly if countries had dedicated funding for management support of PCAs in a stronghold. In Brazil, that funding was provided by the Amazon Region Protected Areas Program (ARPA), which is coordinated by the Ministry of Environment and is the recipient of funds from multilateral and bilateral donors, international NGOs, and private foundations. In Colombia, a similar arrangement pertains to Herencia Colombia (HECO), which is managed by Parques Nacionales Naturales. In Peru, it is Patrimonio Natural del Peru (PdP), which receives institutional support through the National Protected Areas Service and financial support from external donors.

In Brazil, PCAs are already often grouped into larger management units, or “mosaicos,” so we considered these as strongholds. The intent of mosaicos is to operate at a larger scale and coordinate the management of government protected areas, neighboring indigenous territories and protected area buffer zones. Within the Brazilian Amazon, 4 large mosaicos were included in the list of strongholds: 1 (Eastern Amazonia) included mosaico da Amazônia Oriental; 3 (Apui–Southern Amazon) included two mosaicos, Apui and the mosaico da Amazônia Meridional; and 6 (Mamiráua–Amanã–Jaú–Unini) included mosaico Baixo Rio Negro.

Fig 3 illustrates the 14 identified strongholds (average size = 69,808 km 2 ) mapped onto the geographic distribution of ecological integrity across the basin. However, unlike in Central Africa, we did not use the boundaries of the KLCs [ 81 ] to define the conservation landscape. As in Central Africa, our intent was to compare the ecological integrity of strongholds to the matrix in which they were embedded, but the KLCs defined in Amazonia were very large and together covered much of the Amazon basin. Accordingly, Fig 3 plots the boundaries of each conservation landscape as an arbitrarily defined 60 km buffer around that stronghold (see S2 Text ). In all cases, CII values of strongholds were greater than that of the surrounding landscape.

Nature’s Strongholds embedded within conservation landscapes in Amazonia, mapped onto ecological integrity of the region. Data layers used listed in S2 Text . AOI, area of interest.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3002613.g003

To make the case that strongholds are more ecologically intact than the surrounding landscapes, we used principal component analysis to compare, for all 1 km grid cells, the CII, the standard deviation of the CII, and the land areas with values scaled to have a mean of 0 and a variance of 1 (see S2 Text and S4 Table ). As in the Central Africa case study, principal component 1 is a function of high intactness (CII = 0.956, SD (CII) = −0.953, land area = 0.08), and principal component 2 is almost completely dominated by the size of the land area (land area = 0.996, SD (CII) = 0.087, CII = 0.003). The ovals in Fig 4 highlight the distribution of points in the stronghold class and the surrounding landscape class. They illustrate the degree of separation (not a statistical representation), the tendency for strongholds to be more ecologically intact than the surrounding landscape, and for larger strongholds to be more ecologically intact than smaller strongholds. These observations were confirmed using paired t tests, which indicated that strongholds have both a higher average ecological integrity and a lower variance in ecological integrity than the surrounding matrix (see S2 Text ). We also confirmed that conservation landscapes that contained identified strongholds are more ecologically intact than the Amazon basin as a whole. The idea that Nature’s Strongholds and conservation landscapes are important for biodiversity conservation in the Amazon basin is suggested by strongholds having a higher ecological integrity, which infers a higher biodiversity value than the matrices in which they are embedded, and conservation landscapes (strongholds and surrounding matrices) have a higher ecological integrity than the Amazon basin as a whole (see S2 Text and S5 Table ).

Principal component analysis for Strongholds (filled squares, dashed oval) and surrounding conservation landscapes (filled circles, solid oval). Principal component 1 (PC1), which is most heavily weighted towards the CII, is plotted against principal component 2 (PC2), which is most heavily weighted towards land area. CII, Contextual Intactness Index.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3002613.g004

Another proxy for biodiversity and its distribution relative to strongholds and conservation landscapes is provided by Wallace and colleagues [ 82 ]. Although these authors did not focus on strongholds per se, they examined the geographic distribution of amphibian, mammal, and bird diversity in the GBMF conservation landscapes (termed “mosaics,” as distinct from Brazilian mosaicos). Documenting species occurrence in the Amazon remains incomplete, but the authors, based on the geo-referenced occurrences of species across the region, concluded that mosaics were disproportionately important for conserving biodiversity: “the 12 conservation mosaics cover 53.84% of the Amazon basin [but] are expected to hold 3,836 species, representing 66.64% of Amazon species.”

Planning at the scale of Nature’s Strongholds

NGOs are increasingly organizing their area-based conservation efforts at the scale and complexity of strongholds. For example, the WCS and the World Wide Fund for Nature have structured their terrestrial area-based work around the conservation of large landscapes, which typically extend beyond parks and protected areas, encompassing a diverse range of land use categories [ 78 ]. This approach emphasizes the ecological integrity of these areas, that their conservation has consequences for nature and people, and that these large areas serve to protect and maintain a number of values, including biodiversity, watersheds, carbon stocks and sinks, traditional cultures, and human livelihoods.

Another example of planning at the scale and complexity of strongholds is provided by the German “Legacy Landscapes Fund” [ 79 ]. Legacy Landscapes are terrestrial areas across the globe that are larger than 2,000 km 2 , are ecologically intact, and are home to globally important biodiversity. Selected Legacy Landscapes receive significant long-term financing (1 million dollars a year for a minimum of 15 to 30 years). The Legacy Landscapes program explicitly recognizes the need to provide this financing at large, spatial scales. Each Legacy Landscape comprises a core protected area that covers at least 1,000 km 2 (or at least 50% of the entire landscape), is IUCN Category I/II or equivalent, along with contiguous land categories such as community managed conservation areas, and/or other contiguous protected areas with a different IUCN status.

Range-wide priority setting for species-specific conservation efforts typically plan at this scale. A global conservation plan for jaguars identified 51 “jaguar conservation units” (JCUs), large, spatially defined areas with viable populations, often in and around protected areas. JCUs averaged over 25,000 km 2 in size [ 90 ]. In a different socioeconomic and ecological context, Walston and colleagues [ 91 ] identified 42 “source sites” across the present range of tigers. Source sites were largely protected areas and defined as having the potential to maintain >25 breeding females, with the area having a conservation infrastructure and the legal mandate for protection. Their average size was 2,100 km 2 . Source sites offered the potential for tigers to expand across the wider landscape.

Managing Nature’s Strongholds

Conservation management of potentially multiple categories of PCAs across large areas will require the integration of conservation planning systems and the administrative and participatory mechanisms to coordinate management. Some of the challenges to doing this are at least partly technical, such as ensuring that key indicators of management effectiveness are defined appropriately and measured at the appropriate scale [ 69 ]. Other challenges include the need to involve a wide range of stakeholders and secure approval for conservation action. To do so will require the engagement of carefully nested stakeholder groups, operating within individual jurisdictions and across the Nature’s Stronghold as a whole. Preventing takeover by a few powerful interest groups will require constant oversight and ensuring efficient and equitable engagement over a wide area will be challenging. Similarly, planning will need to take place at a wider level than hitherto, including with respect to current and future climate change. None of this is revolutionary, the tools and methods exist, but they have seldom been applied at this scale [ 92 ].

These are the challenges faced by the “Mosaicos de unidades de conservação” within the Brazilian national system of protected areas, which provide a pertinent example of how to approach the scaled-up management of multiple PCAs, often comprising different land categories. Mosaicos are spatially organized collections of different land use categories under different jurisdictions (see Case Study 2). When the Sistema Nacional de Unidades de Conservação was established, Article 26 of the 2000 Law 9.985 stated: “when there is a set of conservation units of different categories or not, close, juxtaposed or overlapping, and other public or private protected areas, constituting a mosaico, the management of the group should be carried out in an integrated and participatory manner, considering its different conservation objectives, in order to make the presence of biodiversity, the enhancement of socio-diversity and sustainable development in the regional context compatible.” The intent was to enable management integration across much larger areas and create economies of scale. For example, one of the oldest and most consolidated mosaicos in the Brazilian Amazon is the Lower Rio Negro mosaico, which includes 11 PCAs (national parks, sustainable development reserves, environmental protection areas, state parks, and extractive reserves) in 6 Amazonas municipalities covering an area of 74,128 km 2 [ 93 ]. To date, conservation management has depended on strengthening systems within each PCA, but to improve management effectiveness across the whole mosaico, the governmental Instituto Chico Mendes de Conservação da Biodiversidade has recently established councils and management units (Núcleos de Gestão Integrada) for each.

Extending the Nature’s Strongholds approach to other regions

Conserving at the scale of Nature’s Strongholds will support the efforts of governments and the conservation community to align and coordinate protection over the larger areas that are needed to address the global threats to biodiversity stemming from the loss and degradation of Nature. We have provided examples in Central Africa and Amazonia. Characteristics of strongholds will vary with the ecosystem, the size and spatial distribution of PCAs, the fragmentation or degree of continuity of natural habitats in the landscape, the spatial pattern of ecological integrity, and the existing governance and management regimes. The example of mosaicos in Brazil illustrates how the size of strongholds might vary. While the 4 mosaicos in the Brazilian Amazon are large (averaging 56,303 km 2 , with a median size of 50,876 km 2 ), the 22 terrestrial mosaicos from other regions and ecosystems in Brazil average 8,960 km 2 , with a median size of 3,785 km 2 .

Identifying Nature’s Strongholds remains a work in progress, and also depends on advances in land-use planning, restoration of degraded sites, and the establishment of equitable and effective conservation management. The approach is clearly most suited to areas that contain large, connected areas of natural habitat with existing areas under conservation management, and is least applicable in scattered, fragmented ecosystems with a variety of different land uses. There are, for example, areas of Europe and Central Asia where large semi-natural areas still exist, such as the Carpathian and Caucasus mountains, and large, sparsely populated areas of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan [ 94 , 95 ]. A combination of strategic land purchase and negotiated agreements with governments and other landowners could create conservation areas at scale. The expansion of deer, wolf, jackal, and lynx throughout Eastern Europe and Central Asia shows the potential for large-scale wildlife conservation in these areas [ 96 ].

Conclusions

In this Essay, we argue that to meet the GBF’s 30x30 target, conservation areas need to be large enough to encompass functioning ecosystems and their associated biodiversity, and located in areas of high ecological integrity. Often, this will require well-connected aggregations of effectively managed and equitably governed PCAs, embedded in a larger conservation landscape. We have provided a framework to identify these areas, which we call Nature’s Strongholds, which have the characteristics of large size, interconnected PCAs, high ecological integrity, and effective management and good governance.

We interpret these characteristics in the context of Central Africa and Amazonia and identify strongholds within these 2 regions. Other strongholds might be included in the future if PCAs meet criteria of ecological integrity, adequate funding, management effectiveness, and good governance. When applying the approach to other regions, the specific characteristics used to identify strongholds will vary with the size and spatial distribution of PCAs, the matrix in which they are embedded (including patterns of ecological integrity), and management and governance regimes.

Governmental, non-governmental, and civil society organizations engaged with area-based conservation are increasingly planning and coordinating across large areas, multiple jurisdictions, and a diversity of management authorities. Management at this scale and degree of complexity, while challenging, will allow authorities to effectively contribute to biodiversity conservation and promote adaptation to climate change.

Supporting information

S1 table. size, mean, and standard deviation of contextual intactness index (cii) for key landscapes for conservation (klcs) (excluding pcas in identified strongholds) and pcas in central africa..

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3002613.s001

S2 Table. Size, mean, and standard deviation of Contextual Intactness Index (CII) for Key Landscapes for Conservation (KLCs) (including all PCAs in identified strongholds) in Central Africa.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3002613.s002

S3 Table. Present distribution and abundances of forest elephants and great apes across Nature’s Strongholds in Central Africa.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3002613.s003

S4 Table. Size, mean, and standard deviation of Contextual Intactness Index (CII) for Amazonian strongholds and the surrounding landscapes (considered separately).

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3002613.s004

S5 Table. Size, mean, and standard deviation of Contextual Intactness Index (CII) for Amazonian strongholds and the surrounding landscapes (considered together).

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3002613.s005

S1 Text. Identifying Key Conservation Landscapes and Nature’s Strongholds in Central Africa.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3002613.s006

S2 Text. Identifying Conservation Landscapes and Nature’s Strongholds in Amazonia.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3002613.s007

Acknowledgments

The authors thank a large number of field-based colleagues in Central Africa and Amazonia who helped classify conservation areas and thus define strongholds, David Wilkie for insights on how good governance is defined, Conrad Aveling for providing perspective on the criteria that the European Union used to define Key Landscapes for Conservation, and he and Mélanie Weynants for providing updated polygons for these landscapes.

• 1. Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). Final text of Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, 2020. Available from: https://www.cbd.int/gbf/ .
• 2. Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). Summary of the Tenth Conference of the Parties of the Convention on Biological Diversity, 2010. Available from: https://enb.iisd.org/vol09/enb09544e.html .
• View Article
• Google Scholar
• PubMed/NCBI
• 7. Nature Needs Half. 2017 [cited 2023 Sep 12] Available from: https://natureneedshalf.org .
• 8. EO Wilson Biodiversity Foundation. Half-Earth Project, 2017 [cited 2022 Mar 3]. Available from: www.eowilsonfoundation.org/half-earth-project .
• 10. Executive order on tackling the climate crisis at home and abroad. 2021. [cited 2023 Sep 12]. Available from: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2021/01/27/executive-order-on-tackling-the-climate-crisis-at-home-and-abroad/ .
• 11. High Ambition Coalition. 2022. [cited 2023 Sep 12]. Available from: https://www.hacfornatureandpeople.org/home .
• 12. Global Ocean Alliance: 30by30 initiative. 2021. [cited 2023 Sep 12]. Available from: https://www.gov.uk/government/topical-events/global-ocean-alliance-30by30-initiative .
• 13. The largest ever private funding commitment to biodiversity conservation. Protecting our Planet Challenge. 2021. [cited 2023 Sep 12]. Available from: https://www.protectingourplanetchallenge.org/ .
• 15. MacArthur RL, Wilson EO. The theory of island biogeography. Princeton: Princeton University Press; 1967.
• 25. Hilty J, Worboys GL, Keeley A, Woodley S, Lausche B, Locke H, et al. Guidelines for conserving connectivity through ecological networks and corridors. Gland, Switzerland: IUCN Best Practice Protected Area Guidelines Series, No. 30; 2020.
• 29. International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN): World Commission on Protected Areas, Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), National Geographic Society (NGS), UN Environmental Programme (UNEP): World Conservation Monitoring Center, BirdLife International, 2021. Conserving at least 30% of the planet by 2030 –What should count? Available from: https://www.iucn.org/sites/dev/files/content/documents/what_counts_en_web_07sep2021.pdf .
• 37. International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Recognizing and reporting other effective area-based conservation measures. Available from: https://portals.iucn.org/library/node/48773 .
• 48. United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples: resolution, 2007. UN General Assembly A/RES/61/295. Available from: https://www.un.org/development/desa/indigenouspeoples/wp-content/uploads/sites/19/2018/11/UNDRIP_E_web.pdf .
• 49. Leopold A. A Sand County Almanac. Oxford: Oxford University Press; 1949.
• 64. Hockings M, Stolton S, Leverington F, Dudley N, Courrau J. Evaluating Effectiveness: A Framework for Assessing Management Effectiveness of Protected Areas. 2nd ed. IUCN, Gland, Switzerland and Cambridge, UK; 2006.
• 68. Stolton S, Dudley N, Hockings M. METT Handbook: A guide to using the Management Effectiveness Tracking Tool (METT). Gland, Switzerland: WWF; 2021.
• 72. Franks P, Small R. Social Assessment for Protected Areas (SAPA). Methodology Manual for SAPA Facilitators. London: International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED); 2016.
• 73. Brooker F, Franks P. Governance Assessment for Protected and Conserved Areas (GAPA). Methodology manual for GAPA facilitators. London: International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED); 2019.
• 74. Detoeuf D, Wieland M, Cowles P, Wilkie D. Natural Resource Governance Tool, Version 2. Bronx, NY: Wildlife Conservation Society and Washington, D.C.: USAID; 2020.
• 77. International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN). A Global Standard for the Identification of Key Biodiversity Areas, Ver 1.0. Gland, Switzerland: IUCN; 2016.
• 78. Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS). Nature’s Strongholds. [cited 2023 Sep 12]. Available from: https://www.wcs.org/our-work/strongholds .
• 79. Legacy Landscapes Fund. [cited 2023 Sep 12]. Available from: https://legacylandscapes.org .
• 80. Union European. Larger than Elephants: Inputs for an EU strategic approach to wildlife conservation in Africa, 2015 Brussels, Belgium: European Commission, Directorate-General for International Cooperation and Development. ISBN 978-92-79-49564-9. https://doi.org/10.2841/909032
• 81. Union European. Larger than Jaguars: Inputs for a strategic approach to biodiversity conservation in Latin America and the Caribbean. Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union. ISBN 978-92-76-17345-8. https://doi.org/10.2841/760354
• 82. Wallace R, Torrico O, Porcel Z, Domic E. Terrestrial vertebrate biological diversity in twelve Andes-Amazon conservation mosaics. La Paz, Bolivia: Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and Wildlife Conservation Society; 2020.
• 86. World Bank. Collaborative Management Partnership: Toolkit. Washington, D.C.: World Bank Group; 2021. Available from: https://www.worldbank.org/en/programs/global-wildlife-program/publication/collaborative-management-partnership-toolkit .
• 88. Thouless CR, Dublin HT, Blanc JJ, Skinner DP, Daniel TE, Maisels F, et al. African Elephant Status Report 2016: an update from the African Elephant database. Gland, Switzerland: Occasional Paper Series of the IUCN Species Survival Commission, No. 60 IUCN/SSC African Elephant Specialist Group; 2016.
• 89. Rainer H, White A, Lanjouw A, editors. State of the Apes: Killing, capture, trade and conservation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; 2021.
• 93. Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Protected Areas. In: OECD Environmental performance reviews: Brazil; 2015. p. 231–261. https://doi.org/10.1787/9789264240094-12-en

Search the United Nations

• What Is Climate Change
• Myth Busters
• Renewable Energy
• Finance & Justice
• Initiatives
• Sustainable Development Goals
• Paris Agreement
• Climate Ambition Summit 2023
• Climate Conferences
• Press Material
• Communications Tips

Biodiversity - our strongest natural defense against climate change

Biological diversity — or biodiversity — is the variety of life on Earth, in all its forms, from genes and bacteria to entire ecosystems such as forests or coral reefs. The biodiversity we see today is the result of 4.5 billion years of evolution, increasingly influenced by humans.

Biodiversity forms the web of life that we depend on for so many things – food, water, medicine, a stable climate, economic growth, among others. Over half of global GDP is dependent on nature. More than 1 billion people rely on forests for their livelihoods. And land and the ocean absorb more than half of all carbon emissions. 

But nature is in crisis. Up to one million species are threatened with extinction, many within decades. Irreplaceable ecosystems like parts of the Amazon rainforest are turning from carbon sinks into carbon sources due to deforestation. And 85 per cent of wetlands , such as salt marshes and mangrove swamps which absorb large amounts of carbon, have disappeared.   

How is climate change affecting biodiversity?  

The main driver of biodiversity loss remains humans’ use of land – primarily for food production . Human activity has already altered over 70 per cent of all ice-free land. When land is converted for agriculture, some animal and plant species may lose their habitat and face extinction.  

But climate change is playing an increasingly important role in the decline of biodiversity. Climate change has altered marine, terrestrial, and freshwater ecosystems around the world. It has caused the loss of local species, increased diseases, and driven mass mortality of plants and animals, resulting in the first climate-driven extinctions.

On land, higher temperatures have forced animals and plants to move to higher elevations or higher latitudes, many moving towards the Earth’s poles, with far-reaching consequences for ecosystems. The risk of species extinction increases with every degree of warming.  

In the ocean, rising temperatures increase the  risk of irreversible loss of marine and coastal ecosystems . Live coral reefs , for instance, have nearly halved in the past 150 years, and further warming threatens to destroy almost all remaining reefs.  

Overall, climate change affects the health of ecosystems , influencing shifts in the distribution of plants, viruses, animals, and even human settlements. This can create increased opportunities for animals to spread diseases and for viruses to spill over to humans. Human health can also be affected by reduced ecosystem services, such as the loss of food, medicine and livelihoods provided by nature.   

Why is biodiversity essential for limiting climate change?  

When human activities produce greenhouse gases, around half of the emissions remain in the atmosphere, while the other half is  absorbed by the land and ocean . These ecosystems – and the biodiversity they contain – are natural carbon sinks, providing so-called nature-based solutions to climate change.

Protecting, managing, and restoring forests , for example, offers roughly two-thirds of the total mitigation potential of all nature-based solutions. Despite massive and ongoing losses, forests still cover more than 30 per cent of the planet’s land.

Peatlands – wetlands such as marshes and swamps – cover only 3 per cent of the world’s land, but they store twice as much carbon as all the forests. Preserving and restoring peatlands means keeping them wet so the carbon doesn’t oxidize and float off into the atmosphere. 

Ocean habitats such as seagrasses and mangroves can also  sequester carbon dioxide from the atmosphere  at rates up to four times higher than terrestrial forests can. Their ability to capture and store carbon make mangroves highly valuable in the fight against climate change.

Conserving and restoring natural spaces , both on land and in the water, is essential for limiting carbon emissions and adapting to an already changing climate. About one-third of the greenhouse gas emissions reductions needed in the next decade could be achieved by improving nature’s ability to absorb emissions. 

Is the UN tackling climate and biodiversity together?  

Climate change and biodiversity loss (as well as pollution) are part of an interlinked triple planetary crisis the world is facing today. They need to be tackled together if we are to advance the Sustainable Development Goals and secure a viable future on this planet.

Governments deal with climate change and biodiversity through two different international agreements – the  UN Framework Convention on Climate Change  (UNFCCC) and the  UN Convention on Biological Diversity  (CBD), both established at the 1992 Rio Earth Summit.

Similar to the historic  Paris Agreement  made in 2015 under the UNFCCC, parties to the Biodiversity Convention in December 2022 adopted an agreement for nature, known as the  Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework , which succeeds the  Aichi Biodiversity Targets  adopted in 2010.

The framework includes wide-ranging steps to tackle the causes of biodiversity loss worldwide, including climate change and pollution.

“An ambitious and effective post-2020 global biodiversity framework, with clear targets and benchmarks, can put nature and people back on track,”  the UN Secretary-General said , adding that, “this framework should work in synergy with the Paris Agreement on climate change and other multilateral agreements on forests, desertification and oceans.”

In December 2022,  governments met in Montreal, Canada  to agree on the new framework to secure an ambitious and transformative global plan to set humanity on a path to living in harmony with nature.

“Delivering on the framework will contribute to the climate agenda, while full delivery of the Paris Agreement is needed to allow the framework to succeed,”  said Inger Andersen , the head of the UN Environment Programme. “We can’t work in isolation if we are to end the triple planetary crises.”

Watch our  interview with Elizabeth Mrema , the Executive Secretary of the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity.

Read the UN Secretary-General’s speech at the Countdown to COP15: Leaders Event for a Nature-Positive World in September 2022, and his remarks at the December 2022 Biodiversity Conference and Press Conference.  

Learn more about…

Climate issues

Learn more about how climate change impacts are felt across different sectors and ecosystems.

Elizabeth Mrema: Protecting the world’s biodiversity

The Executive Secretary of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, Elizabeth Mrema, speaks about the interlinkages between climate change and biodiversity loss.

Hindou Ibrahim: Living in harmony with nature

“Indigenous peoples are a solution, we are not only a victim of the climate change,” says SDG Advocate and Indigenous rights activists Hindou Ibrahim.

Elliott Harris: Measure the value of nature – before it’s too late

UN Chief Economist Elliott Harris introduces a ground-breaking shift in valuing nature as a way of making more informed decisions about economies, climate action and the protection of biodiversity.

The Ocean – the world’s greatest ally against climate change

The ocean is central to reducing global greenhouse gas emissions. Here are a few reasons we need to safeguard the ocean as our best ally for climate solutions.

Renewable energy – powering a safer future

Derived from natural resources that are abundant and continuously replenished, renewable energy is key to a safer, cleaner, and sustainable world.  Explore common sources of renewable energy here.

Causes and effects of climate change

Fossil fuels are by far the largest contributor to the greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change, which poses many risks to all forms of life on Earth.

Facts and figures

• What is climate change?
• Causes and effects
• Myth busters

Cutting emissions

• Explaining net zero
• High-level expert group on net zero
• Checklists for credibility of net-zero pledges
• Greenwashing
• What you can do

Clean energy

• Renewable energy – key to a safer future
• What is renewable energy
• Five ways to speed up the energy transition
• Why invest in renewable energy
• Clean energy stories
• A just transition

Adapting to climate change

• Climate adaptation
• Early warnings for all
• Youth voices

Financing climate action

• Finance and justice
• Loss and damage
• $100 billion commitment
• Why finance climate action
• Biodiversity
• Human Security

International cooperation

• What are Nationally Determined Contributions
• Acceleration Agenda
• Climate Ambition Summit
• Climate conferences (COPs)
• Youth Advisory Group
• Action initiatives
• Secretary-General’s speeches
• Press material
• Fact sheets
• Communications tips

Biodiversity

Explore the diversity of wildlife across the planet. What are species threatened with? What can we do to prevent biodiversity loss?

By: Hannah Ritchie , Fiona Spooner and Max Roser

Most of our work on Our World in Data focuses on data and research on human well-being and prosperity.

But we are just one of many species on Earth, and our demand for resources – land , water, food, and shelter – shapes the environment for other wildlife too.

For millennia, humans have been reshaping ecosystems, directly through competition and hunting of other animals, and indirectly through deforestation and land use changes for agriculture .

You can find all our data, visualizations, and writing related to biodiversity on this page. It aims to provide context on how biodiversity has changed in the past; the state of wildlife today; and how we can use this knowledge to build a future path where humans and other species can thrive on our shared planet.

Key insights on Biodiversity

On average, there has been a large decline across tens of thousands of wildlife populations since 1970.

One of the most widely-quoted, but misunderstood, metrics on biodiversity is the Living Planet Index.

The Living Planet Index tries to summarize the average change in population size of tens of thousands of studied animal populations. It distills this change into a single number.

It's important to note that this data is not globally representative: some regions have much more data available than others. Biodiversity data is much more limited in the tropics, for example.

What it reports is the average decline in animal population sizes since 1970. This does not tell us the:

• Number of species lost;
• Number of populations or individuals that have been lost;
• Number or percentage of species or populations that are declining;
• Number of extinctions.

Since 1970, then, the size of animal populations for which data is available have declined by 69%, on average. The decline for some populations is much larger; for some, it’s much smaller. And, in fact, many populations have been increasing in size. We cover this in the next key insight.

Living Planet Index: what does an average decline of 69% really mean?

The Living Planet Index is the biodiversity metric that always claims the headlines. It’s often misinterpreted. How should we understand it?

What you should know about this data

• The Living Planet Project – which produces the Living Planet Index – is led by the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) and World Wildlife Fund (WWF). 1
• Every two years, a new Living Planet Index report is published. This presents the latest high-quality data we have on animal populations, but also increases in global coverage with every new release.
• The underlying data included in the Living Planet Index comes from a combination of published scientific articles, online databases, and government reports.
• The Living Planet Index aggregates observations on changes in population size, and similar metrics, across tens of thousands of animal populations. Its 2022 report included figures across 30,000 wildlife populations. This captures everything from frogs to elephant species, rhinos to owls, from every continent on Earth. But even 30,000 populations are only a small fraction of the world’s wildlife.
• This data is not globally representative: some regions have much more data available than others. Biodiversity data is much more limited in the tropics, for example.
• The Living Planet Index only includes figures on vertebrate species – mammals, birds, fish, reptiles, and amphibians. It does not include insects, corals, fungi, or plants.
• Its final index is the average change in population size across all of the included animal populations. This figure is not representative of every population and is sensitive to outliers. 2

Not all animal populations are in decline; around half have increasing numbers

The Living Planet Index reports that there has been a large average decline across more than 30,000 animal populations.

But, reducing the state of global biodiversity into a single figure is a problem. It hides a huge diversity of changes in animal populations within the dataset.

The Living Planet Project also shows us what percentage of studied populations have increased, decreased, and remained stable since 1970.

Almost half of these animal populations have increased . This is shown in the chart.

Understanding the broad range of changes in populations is crucial if we’re to stop biodiversity loss – we need to know that not all animal populations are declining. We need to also know which populations are doing well and why they’re doing well.

How the Living Planet project helps us understand changes in the world’s wildlife

Beneath the popular index, the Living Planet database helps us understand where and what animals are deeply threatened, and what animals are thriving.

Wild mammals have declined by 85% since the rise of humans

A diverse range of mammals once roamed the planet. This changed quickly and dramatically with the rising number of humans over the course of the last 100,000 years.

Over this period, wild terrestrial mammal biomass has declined by an estimated 85%. This is shown in the chart.

This looks at the change in wild mammals on the basis of biomass . This means that each animal is measured in tonnes of carbon that it holds. This is a function of its body mass.

In an extended period between 50,000 to 10,000 years ago, hundreds of the world’s largest mammals were wiped out. This is called the Quaternary megafauna extinction event.

Humans were the main driver of this, killing off species through overhunting and changes to their habitats. What’s staggering is how few humans were alive at this time: fewer than 5 million people across the world.

Since then, wild mammals have continued to decline. A lot of this has been driven by the expansion of human agriculture into wild habitats.

But, the future can be very different. We have the opportunity to restore wild mammals by reducing hunting and poaching, and cutting the amount of land that we use for farming.

Wild mammals have declined by 85% since the rise of humans, but there is a possible future where they flourish

Wild mammal biomass has declined by 85% since the rise of humans. But we can turn things around by reducing the amount of land we use for agriculture.

• These estimates come from a combination of studies:
• Only terrestrial mammals are included in these estimates. Marine mammals, such as whales, are excluded.
• These estimates compare mammals on the basis of biomass . This means that each animal is measured in tonnes of carbon that it holds. This is a function of its body mass.
• To calculate the biomass of a taxonomic group, the researchers multiply the carbon stock for a single organism by the number of individuals in that group. In humans, for example, they would calculate the average carbon quantity of a person (about 15%) and multiply it by the human population.
• These figures are approximate and come with significant uncertainty, for two key reasons:

Wild mammals make up only a few percent of the world’s mammals

In the chart, we see the distribution of mammals on Earth. 3 These estimates compare mammals on the basis of biomass . This means that each animal is measured in tonnes of carbon that it holds. This is a function of its body mass. Each rectangle represents one million tonnes of carbon.

Wild mammals make up just 4% of global mammal biomass. This includes marine and land-based mammals.

The other 96% is humans and our livestock.

The dominance of humans is clear. Alone, we account for around one-third of mammal biomass. Almost ten times greater than wild mammals.

Our livestock then accounts for almost two-thirds. Cattle weigh almost ten times as much as all wild mammals combined. The biomass of all of the world’s wild mammals is about the same as our sheep.

Poultry is not included here. But for birds, the distribution is similar: poultry biomass is more than twice that of wild birds.

Livestock make up 62% of the world’s mammal biomass; humans account for 34%; and wild mammals are just 4%.

• This data comes from the study of biomass distribution on Earth by researchers Yinon Bar-On, Rob Phillips, and Ron Milo, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences . 3
• To calculate the biomass of a taxonomic group, the researchers multiplied the carbon stock for a single organism by the number of individuals in that group. In humans, for example, they calculate the average carbon quantity of a person and multiply by the human population. If you want to quickly estimate your carbon biomass: calculate 15% of your weight.
• These figures are approximate and come with significant uncertainty because the total number of wild mammals is highly uncertain.

Thanks to conservation efforts, some wild mammals are making a comeback

We have already seen that many animal populations have increased in the last decades.

Mammals in Europe are a prime example. Many of the region’s iconic mammal species – such as the Eurasian beaver, European bison, and brown bear – have been making a return.

In the chart, we see the average change in the population size of several mammal species in Europe. The studied time span differs from animal to animal, as the chart shows.

For example between 1960 and 2016, populations of brown bears increased by an average of 44%. Between 1977 and 2016, populations of Eurasian otters increased by an average of 300%.

Conservation efforts have played an important role in the return of these mammals, but it is not the only reason for this positive development. One important change is that the rise in agricultural productivity made it possible that agricultural land has declined across Europe, giving more habitat back to wildlife. Countries brought in hunting quotas or even complete bans on hunting. And some species – such as the European bison – were brought back through well-managed re-introduction programs.

Wild mammals are making a comeback in Europe thanks to conservation efforts

Hunting and habitat loss drove many large mammals in Europe close to extinction. New data shows us that many of the continent’s mammal populations are flourishing again.

• This data comes from the Wildlife Comeback Report 2022 . This is published by a coalition of conservation organizations, including the Zoological Society of London; Birdlife International; and Rewilding Europe. 4
• The dataset aggregates multiple studies of animal populations for each species. For example, 98 populations are included in the final figures for Eurasian beavers.
• Researchers calculate the averagerelative change in population size across all of the studied populations of a given species. The final figure does not tell us the total change in populations across Europe.
• Not every species in Europe is increasing in numbers. The underlying report focuses on a selection of mammal species that have made a comeback in recent decades. Many of those that are not shown might still be in decline, or only have stable population numbers.

Research & Writing

Hannah Ritchie

Living Planet Index

How the Living Planet project helps us understand how the world’s wildlife is changing

How did the Living Planet Index change in different world regions?

Faqs on the living planet index.

The state of the world's elephant populations

The state of the world's rhino populations

Global whaling peaked in the 1960s

Extinctions.

There have been five mass extinctions in Earth's history

Did humans cause the Quaternary Megafauna Extinction?

What does it mean for a species to be at risk of extinction?

Other articles on biodiversity.

How much of the world’s food production is dependent on pollinators?

To protect the world’s wildlife we must improve crop yields – especially across Africa

Humans make up just 0.01% of Earth’s life – what’s the rest?

Oceans, land, and deep subsurface: how is life distributed across environments?

How many species are there?

More key articles on biodiversity, the largest mammals have always been at the greatest risk of extinction – this is still the case today.

WWF (2022) Living Planet Report 2022 – Building a nature-positive society. Almond, R.E.A., Grooten, M., Juffe Bignoli, D. & Petersen, T. (Eds). WWF, Gland, Switzerland.

Leung, B., Hargreaves, A. L., Greenberg, D. A., McGill, B., Dornelas, M., & Freeman, R. (2020). Clustered versus catastrophic global vertebrate declines . Nature, 588(7837), 267-271.

Bar-On, Y. M., Phillips, R., & Milo, R. (2018). The biomass distribution on Earth . Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 115(25), 6506-6511.

Ledger, S.E.H., Rutherford, C.A., Benham, C., Burfield, I.J., Deinet, S., Eaton, M., Freeman, R., Gray C., Herrando, S., Puleston, H., Scott-Gatty, K., Staneva, A. and McRae, L. (2022) Wildlife Comeback in Europe: Opportunities and challenges for species recovery . Final report to Rewilding Europe by the Zoological Society of London, BirdLife International and the European Bird Census Council.

Cite this work

Our articles and data visualizations rely on work from many different people and organizations. When citing this topic page, please also cite the underlying data sources. This topic page can be cited as:

BibTeX citation

Reuse this work freely

All visualizations, data, and code produced by Our World in Data are completely open access under the Creative Commons BY license . You have the permission to use, distribute, and reproduce these in any medium, provided the source and authors are credited.

The data produced by third parties and made available by Our World in Data is subject to the license terms from the original third-party authors. We will always indicate the original source of the data in our documentation, so you should always check the license of any such third-party data before use and redistribution.

All of our charts can be embedded in any site.

Our World in Data is free and accessible for everyone.

Help us do this work by making a donation.

Biodiversity Explained: Facts, Myths, and the Race to Protect It

By MJ Altman on January 4, 2023

A baby sloth hangs in a tree at the Bosque da Ciência in Manaus, Brazil. PHOTO: Michael Dantas/United Nations Foundation

As ecosystems and habitats degrade and disappear worldwide, biodiversity — the interconnectedness of all forms of life on our planet — is in jeopardy. In light of a new global agreement to protect our lands, ocean, and waters, explore what biodiversity really means and what it will take to preserve life on Earth.

From microscopic fungi to mega forests, “biodiversity” is the collective term for the variety of life on Earth in all its forms. It is 4.5 billion years of evolution, embodied.

Biodiversity is responsible for our food, our soil, our water, our weather, even the air we breathe. Yet despite being a crucial foundation for our collective future, biodiversity is often lost amid conversations on climate change — until recently.

In December 2022, leaders from nearly 200 nations adopted a landmark UN agreement to reverse nature’s rapid decline before it’s too late. Known as the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework , it calls for protecting 30% of the planet’s land, ocean, and inland waters and includes 23 other targets to help restore and protect ecosystems and endangered species worldwide.

Here are 12 things you should know:

1. Biodiversity is more than just the total number of species on Earth.

“It is actually more complex than that,” Dr. Thomas Lovejoy, the late ecologist, told the United Nations Foundation in 2018. “It’s about the genetic diversity within species, the diversity of habitats, and the large biological units known as biomes.”

This includes the interactions that occur between species within ecosystems – primordial relationships that shape our environment in countless, often unseen ways.

“Without biological diversity, there is no other life on Earth — including our own,” he explained. “Even though we are often oblivious to it, this diversity of life is what provides clean water, oxygen, and all other things that end up being part of our diet, as well as clothing and shelter. It provides a lot of psychological benefits too, which are not much appreciated.”

2. We’re only just beginning to understand biodiversity’s influence and importance in our lives.

Earth’s many ecosystems rely on a delicate, complicated, and fascinating tangle of life that, in many ways, remains a mystery. In fact, the term “biological diversity” wasn’t introduced to the scientific community until 1980 in a research paper on species loss by Dr. Lovejoy. Scientists still haven’t identified all forms of life on the planet. New species are discovered every year.

A harbor seal swims through kelp off the coast of Southern California's Channel Islands. Seals are among the thousands of species that rely on kelp forests for food and shelter. PHOTO: Shutterstock/Joe Belanger

Take kelp, for example. These undersea forests provide sustenance and shelter for marine species like chinook salmon, which, in turn, serve as a staple food for orcas. And kelp also absorb excess carbon dioxide, which can help mitigate climate change.

3. The planet’s biodiversity holds enormous, untapped potential for medical and scientific breakthroughs.

Lovejoy described each species on the planet as a unique set of solutions for a particular set of biological problems. “Whoever would have thought a bacterium from a Yellowstone hot spring would revolutionize forensic and diagnostic medicine, make the human genome project possible, and confer benefits in the trillion-dollar range?” he wrote as a Senior Fellow at the United Nations Foundation, citing a previously unknown and seemingly inconsequential microbe discovered in 1966 that revolutionized genetic testing and immunization development, including the COVID-19 vaccine.

A flowering plant grows from a tree in the Amazon Rainforest, near the research station known as Camp 41 north of Manaus, Brazil. PHOTO: Michael Dantas/United Nations Foundation

Today, one-fourth of all modern medicines are derived from tropical plants, and 70% of all cancer drugs are natural or bio-inspired products. In the past decade, researchers in Nova Scotia found a soil fungus that can disarm antibiotic-resistant bacteria — a discovery that could transform the fields of medicine and agriculture. The possibilities for discovery and innovation are monumental.

4. Climate change and biodiversity are interconnected.

Climate change is causing biodiversity loss, and biodiversity loss is causing climate change. Here’s how: Destroying and degrading ecosystems releases more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than burning fossil fuels.

Meanwhile, the consequences of burning fossil fuels — rising global temperatures, an increase in wildfires, and ocean acidification, to name a few — are threatening habitats and wildlife alike. In late 2019 and early 2020, for example, more than 60,000 koalas were killed by wildfires in Australia so massive that nearly 3 billion animals died or were displaced as a result. Earlier this year, the Australian government officially listed koalas as an endangered species.

At COP 27 last year, world leaders reached a historic agreement to create a “loss and damage” fund to support communities that are already feeling climate change’s disastrous impact, including biodiversity loss and its impact on livelihoods.

More than 60,000 koalas were killed by wildfires in Australia in late 2019 and early 2020. Increased wildfires and subsequent habitat loss are just one of the consequences of climate change. PHOTO: Patrick Kavanagh

5. Biodiversity can help us adapt to climate change.

The UN considers biodiversity our strongest natural defense against climate change. Land and ocean ecosystems currently absorb 60% of human-caused emissions , and they are the planet’s only way of storing massive amounts of carbon dioxide. Coastal wetlands, for example, protect against storm surges and flooding during extreme weather while also storing carbon dioxide and creating oxygen.

According to a joint estimate by the UN Development Programme and the Government of Papua New Guinea, every dollar invested in environmental protection generates more than $2,500 in so-called ecosystem services — water regulation, coastal protection, carbon storage, and other invisible functions that nature provides. It’s one of the reasons that Papua New Guinea launched the first-ever national, independent Biodiversity and Climate Fund to protect its status as one of just 17 “megadiverse” countries.

6. Less biodiversity means a higher risk of disease.

For decades, the scientific community has warned that biodiversity loss increases the spread of infectious disease . Why? Because extinction upsets the ecosystem in unpredictable ways, and the destruction of natural habitats increases interaction between humans and wildlife. Biodiversity essentially acts as a barrier between humans and animal-borne disease.

Species that tend to survive logging, farming, mining, wildlife trade and consumption, and other human activities behind widespread biodiversity loss are often “vectors of disease” like mice and mosquitoes, which host pathogens that are able to make the jump to humans. It’s one of the reasons why cases of Lyme disease in the northeast United States have spiked in recent decades: With fewer mammals to prey on, ticks are increasingly seeking out people. In fact, roughly 75% of emerging infectious diseases are zoonotic .

It’s also why researchers like Dr. Alessandra Nava and her team of virus hunters at Brazil’s Fiocruz Amazônia are tracking the spread of disease in bats, monkeys, and rodents in the world’s largest rainforest. Their goal is to stay a step ahead of future pandemics by better understanding the pathogens contained within the jungle’s creatures before they come in contact with humans — encounters that become more likely as the human footprint expands.

A golden-backed squirrel monkey at the Bosque da Ciência, a rainforest park in Manaus, Brazil. PHOTO: Michael Dantas/United Nations Foundation

7. Biodiversity on land depends on biodiversity in water.

Maintaining the ocean’s ecological balance is crucial for protecting biodiversity on land, as well as maintaining our ability to feed future generations. The ocean plays a vital role in regulating the planet’s weather and water and the air we breathe. It is also the planet’s largest source of protein , feeding more than 3 billion people every day who rely on fish as a staple food.

Yet the ocean remains a vastly unexplored ecological frontier. While scientists have identified 200,000 marine species , the actual number is estimated to be in the millions. Unsustainable fishing practices, pollution, climate change, and habitat destruction are threatening creatures that may vanish before we even knew they existed.

8. Our planet’s biodiversity is on the brink.

Some 1 million species are threatened with extinction right now. That’s more than any other time in history, and they’re disappearing at a rate that is 1,000 times the norm. The culprit is the way most humans consume, produce, travel, and live.

A 2019 UN report found that we have altered 75% of the planet’s terrestrial environment, 40% of its marine environment, and 50% of streams and rivers. Nearly three-fourths of our freshwater resources are devoted to crop or livestock production, which often means using pesticides, fertilizers, fuels, and antibiotics that pollute our rivers, streams, seas, and soil. Every day we are destroying habitats and degrading massive amounts of soil and water through industrial manufacturing and agriculture while jeopardizing precious natural resources that could be lost forever in our lifetime; in the past two decades, we’ve lost half of the planet’s coral reefs . Deforestation in the Amazon rainforest hit a record high last year; some 18% is gone already, with scientists warning that we’re approaching a tipping point toward potential collapse .

9. Sustainability is the only way forward.

Such irresponsible production and consumption of our natural resources come at a catastrophic cost. We are destroying our planet at an unprecedented rate and losing a vast number of plants, animals, insects, and marine life in the process — to the detriment of our own future. Humanity’s health and well-being are dependent on a biodiverse planet.

Fortunately, examples are emerging of a greener, more sustainable way of doing business. Circular economic models are becoming more common as companies realize the economic and environmental value of reducing, reusing, and recycling their supply chain. At the same time, more citizens are demanding sustainable sourcing and socially just labor practices from their consumer goods. In 2022, the founder of the outdoor retailer Patagonia announced plans to invest all of the company’s profits toward combating climate change . “If we have any hope of a thriving planet — much less a business — 50 years from now, it is going to take all of us doing what we can with the resources we have,” Yvon Chouinard wrote .

Along Brazil’s Rio Negro, fourth-generation logger Roberto Brito de Mendonça stands in the dining lodge of his community’s ecotourism lodge. He retired from the family business to help start the operation, which includes a newly built classroom named in honor of Dr. Lovejoy. PHOTO: Michael Dantas/United Nations Foundation

10. Indigenous communities are crucial.

For thousands of years, Indigenous communities have served as the planet’s most effective environmental stewards. Today, according to the UN, Indigenous people manage more than 20% of the planet’s land and 80% of its biodiversity. “For us, it is not a passion, or a job,” Hindou Ibrahim of the Mbororo tribe in Chad, an SDG (Sustainable Development Goal) Advocate and Indigenous rights activist, told the UN last year. “It is our way of living. And that’s what we have done for all generations.”

In 2015, the UN created the Local Communities and Indigenous Peoples Platform to ensure their formal participation in global negotiations on climate change.

11. Conservation is critical.

One of our most promising solutions is preservation. Restoring degraded ecosystems alone could provide up to one-third of the climate mitigation needed to keep the Earth from warming too far above pre-industrial levels. This means creating protected areas, curbing extractive capitalism, and restoring the planet’s enormous amount of degraded land.

People across the globe are leading efforts to do just that. One inspiring example is Rita Mesquita, who expanded the amount of protected rainforest in Brazil by 76% during her time in the country’s Ministry of the Environment. Today, she oversees programs that encourage residents and visitors alike in Manaus to interact with the surrounding Amazon rainforest.

A Rhinoceros Beetle in Costa Rica’s National Park Tortuguero. The rhino beetle is one of the strongest insects in the world with relation to its body size, but because its tropical lowland habitat has been deforested and overcut, it is struggling to survive. PHOTO: GRID-Arendal/Peter Prokosch

12. We need cooperation — and revolution — at all levels.

We need partnerships among countries, communities, consumers, and corporations. And we’re seeing signs of progress every day. In fact, at COP 27, the Governments of Brazil, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Indonesia announced an alliance to protect their respective rainforests. Their historic agreement could pave the way for more multilateral action and impact. Coming just a month later, the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework represents an enormous and long-awaited step toward halting extinction rates that some scientists are calling an existential crisis akin to climate change.

A huge part of the solution to the biodiversity challenge will be transforming how we approach the natural world and our place within it. As Dr. Lovejoy told the UN Foundation in 2018 , “There needs to be a major shift in perception from thinking of nature as something with a fence around it in the middle of an expansive, human-dominated landscape … to thinking about embedding our aspirations in nature.”

Share on Mastodon

• News, Stories & Speeches
• Get Involved
• Structure and leadership
• Committee of Permanent Representatives
• UN Environment Assembly
• Funding and partnerships
• Policies and strategies
• Evaluation Office
• Secretariats and Conventions

• Asia and the Pacific
• Latin America and the Caribbean
• New York Office
• North America
• Climate action
• Nature action
• Chemicals and pollution action
• Digital Transformations
• Disasters and conflicts
• Environment under review
• Environmental rights and governance
• Extractives
• Fresh Water
• Green economy
• Ocean, seas and coasts
• Resource efficiency
• Sustainable Development Goals
• Youth, education and environment
• Publications & data

Further Resources

• UNEP’s work on biodiversity
• Making Peace With Nature
• Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework

Related Content

Related Sustainable Development Goals

© 2024 UNEP Terms of Use Privacy   Report Project Concern Report Scam Contact Us

May 22, 2023

One Planet, Two Crises: Tackling Climate Change and Biodiversity in the Fight for Our Future

World Biodiversity Day reminds us that the profound crises we confront are just different sides of the same coin

By Katharine Hayhoe

Farmland serves as a bulwark against desertification in India.

Antonio Ciufo/Getty Images

When you hear the word nature, what comes to mind? For me, it’s the lakes of Southern Ontario, where I spent my childhood summers among its pink and gray granite rocks and shadowed pine forests. I picture the rock bass darting through the sunbeams in the water and hear the cicadas humming in the trees.

I grew up in the 1970s, and even then, nature was far from untouched. Acid rain and water pollution were already making headlines. Rachel Carson's Silent Spring had raised the alarm in 1962. Seven years later, the Cuyahoga River was ablaze for the 12th time . By 1970, the U.S. Clean Air Act was signed.

I still saw these issues as somehow separate from our ordinary lives, though. They were concerns for and on behalf of fish, plants or bees, I thought, not us. I took for granted clean air, abundant water and ample food, and a home unthreatened by fire or flood.

On supporting science journalism

If you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing . By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.

Fast forward to today, and those early alarms have become a deafening siren. While air pollution in the U.S. has declined , its impacts worldwide have skyrocketed. Today, more than one in every six deaths globally is caused by the pollution of our air, water, and soil.

Then there’s climate change: an invisible but devastating force that’s wreaking havoc on a planetary scale. The industrial revolution ignited our unhealthy dependence on fossil fuels; but what we often don’t realize is that nearly 80 percent of the CO 2 emissions from burning coal, gas and oil, and close to 60 percent of all heat-trapping gas emissions, have been released since 1970 . Choices made within my own lifetime are the main reason temperatures are now rising at an unprecedented rate , loading the weather dice against us . Every day now, we witness the impacts : record-breaking heat waves stressing power grids and health systems, supersized cyclones ravaging cities and refugee camps, wildfire smoke suffocating continents, and floods displacing millions.

The urgency and the injustice of the climate crisis compelled me to become an atmospheric scientist. I’m convinced it's the most immediate threat to our civilization and many of the countless species with whom we share this planet. But closely trailing climate change is another equally menacing crisis: the loss of biodiversity, which threatens all life on Earth.

The biodiversity crisis isn’t new, either. Over the last four centuries, humans have driven at least 680 mammal, bird, reptile, amphibian and fish species into extinction; but as with climate change, the rate of impact has escalated. Since 1970, WWF has documented a near 70 percent decline in populations of existing wildlife species; and across the more than eight million animal and plant species on earth, the human-induced extinction rate is estimated at tens to hundreds of times greater than natural rates. With so many species still undiscovered, these numbers vary widely ; enough is known about the impacts of human activities on biodiversity, though, for  ecologists to label the era we’re currently in as the “sixth extinction.”

All too often, though, many of us still think and act as I did when I was young: mistakenly assuming that, were our planet’s ecosystems to collapse, we could miraculously persist without the air, water, and essential resources they provide. This perspective endangers us all. Climate change, pollution and biodiversity loss have escalated to crisis levels that threaten not just flora and fauna, but humanity itself. It’s our collective survival that’s at risk.

Our ultimate goal is not merely to fix these crises, but to ensure a better future: for ourselves, for our children and for everyone and everything we love here on this Earth. However, this better future can only be reached by overcoming our self-made crises. Our ecosystems are, quite literally, our life-support systems. Without them, we cannot ensure stable global food systems and economies, let alone provide clean air and unpolluted water for the eight billion people who inhabit this planet. Our well-being and that of all life on Earth are fundamentally entwined.

Unlike other species, however, we have a choice. We can see what’s happening; we know we’re responsible; and we can still prevent catastrophe. But we don’t have much time. We can’t afford to tackle these crises with piecemeal solutions. We need comprehensive, multipronged strategies, everything from clean energy to educating women in low-income nations, that address climate, pollution, biodiversity—and health, poverty and other inequities—and we need them now .

The stakes are high: in the 2015 Paris Agreement , the world agreed to limit warming to “well below” 2 degrees Celsius, a threshold now set at 1.5 degrees C after scientists quantified the risks of additional warming. More recently, in December 2022, countries agreed to the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework . It addresses the main drivers of biodiversity loss and calls for the protection of 30 percent of land, ocean and freshwaters by 2030.

Policies implemented since the Paris Agreement have already reduced projected warming by end of century from about 4.5 degrees C to 2.8 degrees C . That’s a lot: but it’s still not enough. For these audacious plans to succeed, there cannot be any new fossil fuel development. Greenhouse gas emissions must be reduced and eventually eliminated through efficiency, improved land use and agricultural practices, and the clean energy transition. We must invest in nature, which has the potential to absorb up to a third of our carbon emissions. And we need countries to write and implement their own national biodiversity action plans, and funding to flow to climate mitigation, climate resilience and biodiversity in low-income countries and key conservation areas around the world, particularly those most vulnerable and most representative of the world’s ecosystems.

Nature offers a powerful ally in combating the catastrophic effects of human-induced climate change and ecosystem disruption, and the path to a net-zero, nature-positive world isn’t uncharted. The latest IPCC report shows how so many of the solutions to climate change are already here, from halting deforestation to accelerating electrification. Organizations like the Nature Conservancy and Project Drawdown offer resources like the Biodiversity Action Guide and the Drawdown Roadmap , illustrating how we can get started on actions that tackle multiple crises at once.

Implementing effective, nature-positive solutions is crucial to our fight against climate change. Greening low-income neighborhoods in large urban centres keeps them cool during heat waves, reducing socioeconomic inequities in health risks. But this action also filters pollution from the air; and absorbs rainfall to prevent floods, making the neighborhoods more climate-resilient. It provides places for people to be in nature, improving both our physical and mental health; it increases habitats for biodiversity; and it even takes up carbon. That’s at least six wins. Other solutions, from investing in public transportation to climate-smart agriculture, carry similar benefits for health and well-being, as well as pollution, biodiversity and climate.

Tackling the pollution, climate and biodiversity crises that stand between us and a better future is the biggest and most complex challenge we’ve ever faced. It demands an equally ambitious response from all of us: from the largest countries and companies in the world to each of us as individuals who can raise our voices to advocate for the changes we need.

Events such as Earth Day in April and World Biodiversity Day in May serve as potent reminders that the crises we confront are just different sides of the same coin. That’s why I constantly strive to reach beyond the artificial silos we impose on ourselves and others and focus on the end goal: saving ourselves and all others who share our home. Our future is in our hands, and together, I know, we can turn the tide.

This is an opinion and analysis article, and the views expressed by the author or authors are not necessarily those of  Scientific American.

Why is biodiversity important?

Biodiversity is essential for the processes that support all life on Earth, including humans. Without a wide range of animals, plants and microorganisms, we cannot have the healthy ecosystems that we rely on to provide us with the air we breathe and the food we eat. And people also value nature of itself.

Some aspects of biodiversity are instinctively widely valued by people but the more we study biodiversity the more we see that all of it is important – even bugs and bacteria that we can’t see or may not like the look of. There are lots of ways that humans depend upon biodiversity and it is vital for us to conserve it. Pollinators such as birds, bees and other insects are estimated to be responsible for a third of the world’s crop production. Without pollinators we would not have apples, cherries, blueberries, almonds and many other foods we eat. Agriculture is also reliant upon invertebrates – they help to maintain the health of the soil crops grow in.  Soil is teeming with microbes that are vital for liberating nutrients that plants need to grow, which are then also passed to us when we eat them. Life from the oceans provides the main source of animal protein for many people.

Trees, bushes and wetlands and wild grasslands naturally slow down water and help soil to absorb rainfall. When they are removed it can increase flooding. Trees and other plants clean the air we breathe and help us tackle the global challenge of climate change by absorbing carbon dioxide. Coral reefs and mangrove forests act as natural defences protecting coastlines from waves and storms. 

Many of our medicines, along with other complex chemicals that we use in our daily lives such as latex and rubber, also originate from plants. Spending time in nature is increasingly understood to lead to improvements in people’s physical and mental health. Simply having green spaces and trees in cities has been shown to decrease hospital admissions, reduce stress and lower blood pressure.

Further reading

Plural valuation of nature matters for environmental sustainability and justice by Berta Martin-Lopez, Social-Ecological Systems Institute, Faculty of Sustainability, Leuphana University of Lüneburg, Germany

Climate change and biodiversity

Human activities are changing the climate. Science can help us understand what we are doing to habitats and the climate, but also find solutions.

Email updates

We promote excellence in science so that, together, we can benefit humanity and tackle the biggest challenges of our time.

Subscribe to our newsletters to be updated with the latest news on innovation, events, articles and reports.

What subscription are you interested in receiving? (Choose at least one subject)

What are the effects of climate change on biodiversity?

Climate change is dramatically shaping our world today. But its consequences are not limited to humans alone. It also has far-reaching effects on the world’s biodiversity. Let's explore how climate change and biodiversity are interlinked – and how tackling one can help the other.

Climate change is an undeniable reality that is dramatically shaping our world today. Its impacts are profound, from rising temperatures and melting ice caps to extreme weather . But its consequences are not limited to humans alone. It also has far-reaching effects on the world’s biodiversity. This is often overlooked, yet it is interlinked.

In just over 40 years, wildlife populations showed a dramatic decline of 69% on average. The IPCC reports that around 20-30% of species could die out if global mean temperatures go up by 1.5-2.5 degrees. Yet the global average surface temperature has risen by roughly 1 degree Celsius . The data speaks for itself, painting a clear picture of the current state of biodiversity and climate change.

The effects of climate change on biodiversity

Biodiversity, or the ‘diversity of life’ on Earth, is essential for the planet’s health and survival. But the effects of climate change are becoming increasingly clear. Extreme weather events are happening more often. The timing of biological events is changing. Our wildlife is disappearing. But its impacts are not felt the same across the planet, as some regions and species are more at risk than others. 

Climate change is having a greater impact on the poles, tropical rainforests, and coastal areas than anywhere else in the world. This could have far-reaching consequences for the planet’s health; and our future.

Rising global temperatures leads to habitat loss on land and sea

Rising global temperatures, also known as ‘ global warming ’, is one of the most important aspects of climate change. It refers to the increasing greenhouse gases, like CO 2 and methane, in the atmosphere, which trap the sun’s heat. This trapped heat is related—directly or indirectly—to widespread habitat loss on both land and in the sea.

On the surface, polar ice caps and glaciers are melting. This is causing sea levels to rise and encroach on coastal habitats and the Arctic tundra . Not only this, but global rainfall patterns are being affected as well. The changes in weather patterns can lead to extreme environmental changes, like ‘desertification’. This is when wild habitats like grasslands or shrublands slowly turn into deserts. 

In the oceans, CO 2 concentrations are now higher than they have been in the past 800,000 years . As a result, our seas are getting warmer, and the oceans are becoming more acidic. These conditions are known to cause mass coral bleaching. To date, scientists have identified six coral bleaching events since 1998 , most notably on the Great Barrier Reef. This is of concern since coral reefs are one of the most biodiverse and valuable ecosystems on Earth.

Changing weather patterns disrupt seasonal lifecycles and events

Climate change also affects biodiversity by disturbing the timing of natural cycles and events. Frequent changes in weather patterns, such as early springs or warm winters, can disrupt the natural rhythm of life. Animals often take cues from their environment when making important decisions, like when to migrate or when to reproduce. So any big changes in weather patterns can mean biological events fall out of sync and happen at different times. For example, birds arriving at breeding grounds when the food source is scarcer. This can threaten their survival as well as their breeding efforts.

Climate breakdown can also lead to an unpredictable outcome for the functioning of entire ecosystems. In almost all cases, biodiversity declines despite a ‘ degree of redundancy ’, such as a species being replaced by another. For example, the number of North American monarch butterflies has been shrinking over the years . And this decline has been linked to climate change.

Extreme weather and frequent weather-related disasters harms wildlife

Climate change is causing extreme weather like storms, floods and wildfires to happen more often and be more severe. Such tragic events not only affect humans, but they also destroy habitats and kill wildlife. As an example, the 2019-20 Australian bushfires burned almost 19 million hectares of land . It also affected nearly three billion animals, including koalas, wombats, kangaroos and wallabies. Besides, they can have long-term effects on the remaining survivors and even us, humans.

We can also see the effects of weather-related disasters on biodiversity in the UK. According to the National Trust, the extreme weather in 2022 was very bad for UK wildlife . Dried-up rivers and streams affected wild populations of natterjack toads in northwest England. The shorter flowering season also meant less food for insects and birds, such as bumblebees, butterflies and redwings.

Climate change creates pathways for the introduction and spread of invasive species

The geographic ranges of many animal and plant species have been shifting from low to high latitudes in response to climate change . This can create new pathways for invasive species that are not native to a particular area. And often, they are introduced by human activity.

When the climate changes, invasive species can move into new habitats and compete with native species for food, shelter and space. They can also introduce new diseases. For example, red squirrels used to be a common sight in the UK —the only native squirrel species. But their population has been declining for many years since the introduction of grey squirrels from North America in the 1800s. 

The larger grey squirrels are much better at adapting to changing conditions than the smaller red squirrels. They are also known to carry the ‘squirrelpox’ virus. Grey squirrels are immune to this disease, but it kills the red squirrels. This causes population decline. Red squirrels are now only found in Scotland, parts of northern England and Wales, and small islands near England’s southern coast.

It leads to an increase in human-wildlife conflict

Climate change also contributes to human-wildlife conflict . As wild habitats shrink and food sources become scarce, animals are forced to move closer and closer to human settlements. This leads to increased interactions between humans and wildlife, often resulting in harm to both parties. From the loss of crops and livestock to the loss of human lives and animals involved. Besides, there is also the risk of disease transmission in both animals and humans. 

Human-wildlife conflict is an upcoming global issue. It poses a significant challenge for biodiversity conservation, as well as for our health and well-being. 

It contributes to wildlife decline and extinction of species

The extinction of species is perhaps the most worrying effect of climate change on biodiversity. The most at-risk are those with limited climate ranges, like polar bears and arctic foxes. It is also the case for animals with restricted habitats and small, isolated populations. Galapagos giant tortoises and marine iguanas are a few good examples. 

Our current estimates suggest that wildlife populations have declined by an average of 69% since 1970 . And species are disappearing between 1,000 and 10,000 times higher than what is natural . Other human activities, such as deforestation and overfishing , are also cause for concern. The loss of species not only reduces biodiversity, but it also indicates that the ecosystem is breaking down. If we continue as usual, there is a risk of global system failure unless we take urgent action. For example, if we lose bees, we may lose all the plants that they pollinate. This will then affect all the animals that eat those plants, including humans. A world without bees could mean a rise in global food insecurity unless we take urgent action.

How can we protect biodiversity from climate change?

To protect biodiversity from climate change, we need to focus on big solutions . We need large-scale, system-wide changes, which can include:

• Reducing greenhouse gases. This can be done by using energy more efficiently, changing how we use energy, and using more renewable sources like solar and wind .
• Implementing conservation policies that consider the impact of climate change on wildlife. This includes restoring damaged ecosystems, protecting more wild spaces, and promoting environmental justice .  
• Creating more wildlife corridors and protected green spaces. This allows species to move freely between habitats. 
• Funding research and monitoring of wildlife. This is critical for endangered species and ones at risk from climate change. Doing so can help us understand and plan better ways to protect biodiversity.

Change the world with us

Together we can take on the world's worst polluters and solve its biggest problems. See how you can get involved.

Our website uses cookies. By continuing to browse the site you agree to our privacy policy

An official website of the United States government

The .gov means it’s official. Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

The site is secure. The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

• Publications
• Account settings

Preview improvements coming to the PMC website in October 2024. Learn More or Try it out now .

• Advanced Search
• Journal List
• Springer Nature - PMC COVID-19 Collection

Climate change and its impact on biodiversity and human welfare

K. r. shivanna.

Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment, Srirampura, Jakkur Post, Bengaluru, 560064 India

Climate change refers to the long-term changes in temperature and weather due to human activities. Increase in average global temperature and extreme and unpredictable weather are the most common manifestations of climate change. In recent years, it has acquired the importance of global emergency and affecting not only the wellbeing of humans but also the sustainability of other lifeforms. Enormous increase in the emission of greenhouse gases (CO 2 , methane and nitrous oxide) in recent decades largely due to burning of coal and fossil fuels, and deforestation are the main drivers of climate change. Marked increase in the frequency and intensity of natural disasters, rise in sea level, decrease in crop productivity and loss of biodiversity are the main consequences of climate change. Obvious mitigation measures include significant reduction in the emission of greenhouse gases and increase in the forest cover of the landmass. Conference of Parties (COP 21), held in Paris in 2015 adapted, as a legally binding treaty, to limit global warming to well below 2 °C, preferably to 1.5 °C by 2100, compared to pre-industrial levels. However, under the present emission scenario, the world is heading for a 3–4 °C warming by the end of the century. This was discussed further in COP 26 held in Glasgow in November 2021; many countries pledged to reach net zero carbon emission by 2050 and to end deforestation, essential requirements to keep 1.5 °C target. However, even with implementation of these pledges, the rise is expected to be around 2.4 °C. Additional measures are urgently needed to realize the goal of limiting temperature rise to 1.5 °C and to sustain biodiversity and human welfare.

Introduction

Climate change refers to long-term changes in local, global or regional temperature and weather due to human activities. For 1000s of years, the relationship between lifeforms and the weather have been in a delicate balance conducive for the existence of all lifeforms on this Planet. After the industrial revolution (1850) this balance is gradually changing and the change has become apparent from the middle of the twentieth century. Now it has become a major threat to the wellbeing of humans and the sustainability of biodiversity. An increase in average global temperature, and extreme and unpredictable weather are the most common manifestations of climate change. It has now acquired the importance of global emergency. According to the report of the latest Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (AR6 Climate Change 2021 ), human-induced climate change as is prevalent now is unprecedented at least in the last 2000 years and is intensifying in every region across the globe. In this review the drivers of climate change, its impact on human wellbeing and biodiversity, and mitigation measures being taken at global level are briefly discussed.

Drivers of climate change

Emission of green-house gases.

Steady increase in the emission of greenhouse gases (GHGs) due to human activities has been the primary driver for climate change. The principal greenhouse gases are carbon dioxide (76%), methane (16%), and to a limited extent nitrous oxide (2%). Until recent decades, the temperature of the atmosphere was maintained within a reasonable range as some of the sunlight that hits the earth was reflected back into the space while the rest becomes heat that keeps the earth and the atmosphere warm enough for the sustenance of life forms. Accumulation of greenhouse gases combine with water vapour to form a transparent layer in the atmosphere that traps infrared radiation (net heat energy) emitted from the Earth’s surface and reradiates it back to Earth’s surface, thus contributing to the increasing temperature (greenhouse effect). Methane is 25 times and nitrous oxide 300 times more potent than CO 2 in trapping heat. Until 2019, the US, UK, European Union, Canada, Australia, Japan and Russia were the major CO 2 producers and were responsible for 61% of world’s emissions. Now, China produces the maximum amount of CO 2 (27%) followed by USA (11%) and India (6.6%); on per capita basis, however, India stands ninth.

The emission of GHGs is largely due to the burning of fossil fuels (coal, oil and natural gas) for automobiles and industries which result in carbon emissions during their extraction as well as consumption. The amount of CO 2 in the atmosphere before the industrial revolution used to be around 280 ppm and now it has increased to 412 ppm (as of 2019). Increase in the atmospheric temperature also leads to an increase in the temperature of the ocean. The oceans play an important role in the global carbon cycle and remove about 25% of the carbon dioxide emitted by human activities. Further, some CO 2 dissolves in the ocean water releasing carbonic acid which increases the acidity of the sea water. Rising ocean temperatures and acidification not only reduce their capacity to act as carbon sinks but also affect ocean ecosystems and the populations that relay on them.

Increasing demand for meat and milk has led to a significant increase in the population of livestock and conversion of enormous amount of the land to pasture and farm land to raise livestock. Ruminant animals (largely cows, buffaloes and sheep) produce large amounts of methane when they digest food (through enteric fermentation by microbes), adding to the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere (Sejiyan et al. 2016 ). To produce 1 kg of meat it requires 7 kg of grain and between 5000 and 20,000 L of water whereas to produce 1 kg of wheat it requires between 500 and 4000 L of water (Pimentel and Pimentel 2003 ). Anaerobic fermentation of livestock manure also produces methane. According to Patrick Brown, our animal farming industry needs to be changed; using readily available plant ingredients, the nutritional value of any type of meat can be matched with about one twentieth of the cost (See Leeming 2021 ).

The main natural source of nitrous oxide released to the atmosphere (60%) comes from the activity of microbes on nitrogen-based organic material from uncultivated soil and waste water. The remaining nitrous oxide comes from human activities, particularly agriculture. Application of nitrogenous fertilizers to crop plants is a routine practice to increase the yield; many of the farmers tend to apply more than the required amount. However, it results in nitrous oxide emissions from the soil through nitrification and denitrification processes by microbes. Both synthetic and organic fertilizers increase the amount of nitrogen available in the soil to microbial action leading to the release of nitrous oxide. Organic fertilizers, however, release nitrogen more slowly than synthetic ones so that most of it gets absorbed by the plants as they become available. Synthetic fertilizers release nitrogen rapidly which cannot be used by plants right away, thus making the excess nitrogen available to microbes to convert to nitrous oxide. Presently CO 2 concentration in the atmosphere is higher than at any time in at least 2 million years, and methane and nitrous oxide are higher than at any time in the last 800,000 years (AR6 Climate Change 2021 ).

Permafrost (permanently frozen soil), widespread in Arctic regions of Siberia, Canada, Greenland, Alaska, and Tibetan plateau contains large quantities of organic carbon in the top soil leftover from dead plants that could not be decomposed or rot away due to the cold. Global warming-induced thawing of permafrost facilitates decomposition of this material by microbes thus releasing additional amount of carbon dioxide and methane to the atmosphere.

Deforestation

Limited deforestation in early part of human civilization was the result of subsistence farming; farmers used to cut down trees to grow crops for consumption of their families and local population. In preindustrial period also, there was a balance between the amount of CO 2 emitted through various processes and the amount absorbed by the plants. Forests are the main sinks of atmospheric CO 2 . After the industrial revolution, the trend began to change; increasing proportion of deforestation is being driven by the demands of urbanization, industrial activities and large-scale agriculture. A new satellite map has indicated that field crops have been extended to one million additional km 2 of land over the last two decades and about half of this newly extended land has replaced forests and other ecosystems (Potapov et al. 2021 ).

In recent decades the demands on forest to grow plantation crops such as oil palm, coffee, tea and rubber, and for cattle ranching and mining have increased enormously thus reducing the forest cover. According to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), over 43 million hectares of forest was lost between 2004 and 2017 out of 377 million hectares monitored around the world (Pacheco et al. 2021 ). Amazon Rain Forest is the largest tropical rain forest of the world and covers over 5 million km 2 . It is undergoing extensive degradation and has reached its highest point in recent years. According to National Geographic, about 17% of Amazon rain forest has been destroyed over the past 50 years and is increasing in recent years; during the last 1 year it has lost over 10,000 km 2 . In most of the countries the forest cover is less than 33%, considered necessary. For example, India’s forest and tree cover is only about 24.56% of the geographical area (Indian State Forest Report 2019 ).

Impacts of climate change

Increase in atmospheric temperature has serious consequences on biodiversity and ecosystems, and human wellbeing. The most important evidences of climate change is the long term data available on the CO 2 levels, global temperature and weather patterns. The impacts of climate change in the coming decades are based on published models on the basis of the analysis of the available data. Comparison of the performance of climate models published between 1970 and 2007 in projecting global mean surface temperature and associated changes with actual observations have shown that the models were consistent in predicting global warming in the years after publication (Hausfather et al. 2019 ). This correlation between predicted models and actual data indicates that the models are indeed reliable in accurately predicting the global warming and its impacts on weather pattern in the coming decades and their consequences on biodiversity and human welfare.

Weather pattern and natural disasters

One of the obvious changes observed in recent years is the extreme and unpredictable weather, and an increase in the frequency and intensity of natural disasters. Brazil’s south central region saw one of the worst droughts in 2021with the result many major reservoirs reached < 20% capacity, seriously affecting farming and energy generation (Getirana et al. 2021 ). In earlier decades, it was possible to predict with reasonable certainty annual weather pattern including the beginning and ending of monsoon rains; farmers could plan sowing periods of their crops in synchrony with the prevailing weather. Now the weather pattern is changing almost every year and the farmers are suffering huge losses. Similarly the extent of annual rainfall and the locations associated with heavy and scanty rainfall are no more predictable with certainty. Many areas which were associated with scanty rainfall have started getting much heavier rains and the extent of rainfall is getting reduced in areas traditionally associated with heavy rainfall. Similarly the period and the extent of snowfall in temperate regions have also become highly variable.

Increase in the frequency and intensity of natural disasters such as floods and droughts, cyclones, hurricanes and typhoons, and wildfires have become very obvious. Top five countries affected by climate change in 2021 include Japan, Philippines, Germany, Madagascar and India. Apart from causing death of a large number of humans and other animals, economic losses suffered by both urban and rural populations have been enormous. Deadly floods and landslides during 2020 forced about 12 million people leave their homes in India, Nepal and Bangladesh. According to World Meteorological Organization’s comprehensive report published in August 2021 (WMO-No.1267), climate change related disasters have increased by a factor of five over the last 50 years; however, the number of deaths and economic losses were reduced to 2 million and US$ 3.64 trillion respectively, due to improved warning and disaster management. More than 91% of these deaths happened in developing countries. Largest human losses were brought about by droughts, storms, floods and extreme temperatures. The report highlights that the number of weather, climate and water-extremes will become more frequent and severe as a result of climate change.

Global warming enhances the drying of organic matter in forests, thus increasing the risks of wildfires. Wildfires have become very common in recent years, particularly is some countries such as Western United States, Southern Europe and Australia, and are becoming more frequent and widespread. They have become frequent in India also and a large number of them have been recorded in several states. According to European Space Agency, fire affected an estimated four million km 2 of Earth’s land each year. Wildfires also release large amounts of carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, and fine particulate matter into the atmosphere causing air pollution and consequent health problems. In 2021, wildfires around the world, emitted 1.76 billion tonnes of carbon (European Union’s Copernicus Atmospheric Monitoring Service). In Australia, more than a billion native animals reported to have been killed during 2020 fires, and some species and ecosystems may never recover (OXFAM International 2021 ).

Sea level rise

Global warming is causing mean sea level to rise in two ways. On one hand, the melting of the glaciers, the polar ice cap and the Atlantic ice shelf are adding water to the ocean and on the other hand the volume of the ocean is expanding as the water warms. Incomplete combustion of fossil fuels, biofuels and biomass releases tiny particles of carbon (< 2.5 µm), referred to as black carbon. While suspended in the air (before they settle down on earth’s surface) black carbon particles absorb sun’s heat 1000s of times more effectively than CO 2 thus contributing to global warming. When black particles get deposited over snow, glaciers or ice caps, they enhance their melting further adding to the rise in sea level. Global mean sea level has risen faster since 1900 than over any preceding century in at least the last 3000 years. Between 2006 and 2016, the rate of sea-level rise was 2.5 times faster than it was for almost the whole of the twentieth century (OXFAM International 2021 ). Precise data gathered from satellite radar measurements reveal an accelerating rise of 7.5 cm from 1993 to 2017, an average of 31 mm per decade (WCRP Global Sea Level Budget Group 2018 ).

Snow accounts for almost all current precipitation in the Arctic region. However, it continues to warm four times faster than the rest of the world as the melting ice uncovers darker land or ocean beneath, which absorbs more sunlight causing more heating. The latest projections indicate more rapid warming and sea ice loss in the Arctic region by the end of the century than predicted in previous projections (McCrystall et al. 2021 ). It also indicates that the transition from snow to rain-dominated Arctic in the summer and autumn is likely to occur decades earlier than estimated. In fact this transition has already begun; rain fell at Greenland’s highest summit (3216 m) on 14 August 2021 for several hours for the first time on record and air temperature remained above freezing for about 9 h (National Snow and Ice Sheet Centre Today, August 18, 2021).

In the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union (13 December 2021) researchers warned that rapid melting and deterioration of one of western Antarctica’s biggest glaciers, roughly the size of Florida, Thwaites (often called as Doomsday Glacier), could lead to ice shelf’s complete collapse in just a few years. It holds enough water to raise sea level over 65 cm. Thwaites glacier is holding the entire West Antarctic ice sheet and is being undermined from underneath by warm water linked to the climate change. Melting of Thwaites could eventually lead to the loss of the entire West Antarctic Ice Sheet, which locks up 3.3 m of global sea level rise. Such doomsday may be coming sooner than expected (see Voosen 2021 ). If this happens, its consequences on human tragedy and biodiversity loss are beyond imagination.

The Himalayan mountain range is considered to hold the world’s third largest amount of glacier ice after Arctic and Antarctic regions. It is considered as Asian water tower (Immerzeel et al. 2020 ); the meltwater from the Himalayan glaciers provide the source of fresh water to nearly 2 billion people living along the mountain valleys and lowlands around the Himalayas. These glaciers are melting at unprecedented rates. Recently King et al. ( 2021 ) studied 79 glaciers close to Mt. Everest by analysing mass-change measurements from satellite archives and reported that the rate of ice loss from glaciers consistently increased since the early 1960s. This loss is likely to increase in the coming years due to further warming. In another study, a tenfold acceleration in ice loss was observed across the Himalayas than the average rate in recent decades over the past centuries (Lee et al. 2021 ). Melting of glaciers also results in drying up of perennial rivers in summer leading to the water scarcity for billions of humans and animals, and food and energy production downstream. See level rise and melting of glaciers feeding the rivers could lead to migration of huge population, creating additional problems. Even when the increase in global temperature rise is limited to 1.5 °C (discussed later), it generates a global sea-level rise between 1.7 and 3.2 feet by 2100. If it increases to 2 °C, the result could be more catastrophic leading to the submergence of a large number of islands, and flooding and submergence of vast coastal areas, saltwater intrusion into surface waters and groundwater, and increased soil erosion. A number of islands of Maldives for example, would get submerged as 80% of its land area is located less than one meter above the sea level. The biodiversity in such islands and coastal areas becomes extinct. China, Vietnam, Fiji, Japan, Indonesia, India and Bangladesh are considered to be the most at risk. Sundarbans National Park (UNESCO world heritage Site), the world’s largest Mangrove Forest spread over 140,000 hectares across India and Bangladesh, is the habitat for Royal Bengal Tiger and several other animal species. The area has already lost 12% of its shoreline in the last four decades by rising see level; it is likely to be completely submerged. Jakarta in Indonesia is the fastest sinking city in the world; the city has already sunk 2.5 m in the last 10 years and by 2050, most of it would be submerged. In Europe also, about three quarters of all cities will be affected by rising sea levels, especially in the Netherlands, Spain, Belgium, Greece and Italy. The entire city of Venice may get submerged (Anonymous 2018 ). In USA, New York City and Miami would be particularly vulnerable.

Crop productivity and human health

Many studies have indicated that climate change is driving increasing losses in crop productivity (Zhu et al. 2021 ). The models on global yield loss for wheat, maize and rice indicate an increase in yield losses by 10 to 25% per degree Celsius warming (Deutsch et al. 2018 ). Bras et al. ( 2021 ) reported that heatwave and drought roughly tripled crop losses over the last 50 years, from − 2.2% (1964–1990) to − 7.3% (1991–2015). Overall, the loss in crop production from climate-driven abiotic stresses may exceed US$ 170 billion year –1  and represents a major threat to global food security (Razaaq et al. 2021 ). Analysis of annual field trials of common wheat in California from 1985 to 2019 (35 years), during which the global atmospheric CO 2  concentration increased by 19%, revealed that the yield declined by 13% (Bloom and Plant 2021 ). Apart from crop yield, climate change is reported to result in the decline of nutritional value of food grains (Jagermeyr et al. 2021 ). For example, rising atmospheric CO 2 concentration reduces the amounts of proteins, minerals and vitamins in rice (Zhu et al. 2018 ). This may be true in other cereal crops also. As rice supplies 25% of all global calories, this would greatly affect the food and nutritional security of predominantly rice growing countries. Climate change would also increase the prevalence of insect pests adding to the yield loss of crops. The prevailing floods and droughts also affect food production significantly. Global warming also affects crop productivity through its impact on pollinators. Insect pollinators contribute to crop production in 75% of the leading food crops (Rader et al. 2013 ). Climate change contributes significantly to the decline in density and diversity of pollinators (Shivanna 2020 ; Shivanna et al. 2020 ). Under high as well as low temperatures, bees spend less time in foraging (Heinrich 1979 ) adding additional constraints to pollination efficiency of crop species.

The IPCC Third Assessment Report (Climate change 2001: The scientific basis – IPCC) concluded that the poorest countries would be hardest hit with reductions in crop yields in most tropical and sub-tropical regions due to increased temperature, decreased water availability and new or changed insect pest incidence. Rising ocean temperatures and ocean acidification affect marine ecosystems. Loss of fish habitats is modifying the distribution and productivity of both marine and freshwater species thus affecting the sustainability of fisheries and populations dependent on them (Salvatteci 2022 ).

Air pollution is considered as the major environmental risk of climate change due to its impact on public health causing increasing morbidity and mortality (Manisalidis 2020 ). Particulate matter, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxide, and sulphur dioxide are the major air pollutants. They cause respiratory problems such as asthma and bronchiolitis and lung cancer. Recent studies have indicated that exposure to air pollution is linked to methylation of immunoregulatory genes, altered immune cell profiles and increased blood pressure in children (Prunicki et al. 2021 ). In another study wildfire smoke has been reported to be more harmful to humans than automobiles emissions (Aquilera et al. 2021 ). Stubble burning (intentional incineration of stubbles by farmers after crop harvest) has been a common practice in some parts of South Asia particularly in India; it releases large amount of toxic gases such as carbon monoxide and methane and causes serious damage to the environment and health (Abdurrahman et al. 2020 ). It also affects soil fertility by destroying the nutrients and microbes of the soil. Attempts are being made to use alternative methods to prevent this practice.

A number of diseases such as zika fever, dengue and chikungunya are transmitted by Aedes mosquitoes and are now largely restricted to the monsoon season. Global warming facilitates their spread in time and space thus exposing new populations and regions for extended period to these diseases. Lyme disease caused by a bacterium is transmitted through the bite of the infected blacklegged ticks. It is one of the most common disease in the US. The cases of Lyme disease have tripled in the past two decades. Recent studies have suggested that variable winter conditions due to climate change could increase tick’s activity thus increasing the infections (see Pennisi 2022 ).

Biodiversity

Biodiversity and associated ecoservices are the basic requirements for human livelihood and for maintenance of ecological balance in Nature. Documentation of biodiversity, and its accelerating loss and urgent need for its conservation have become the main concern for humanity since several decades (Wilson and Peter 1988 ; Wilson 2016 ; Heywood 2017 ; IPBES 2019 ; Genes and Dirzo 2021 ; Shivanna and Sanjappa 2021 ). It is difficult to analyse the loss of biodiversity exclusively due to climate change as other human-induced environmental changes such as habitat loss and degradation, overexploitation of bioresources and introduction of alien species also interact with climate change and affect biodiversity and ecosystems. In recent decades there has been a massive loss of biodiversity leading to initiation of the sixth mass extinction crisis due to human-induced environmental changes. These details are not discussed here; they are dealt in detail in many other reviews (Leech and Crick 2007 ; Sodhi and Ehrlich 2010 ; Lenzen et al. 2012 ; Dirzo and Raven 2003 ; Raven 2020 ; Ceballos et al. 2015 ; Beckman et al. 2020 ; Shivanna 2020 ; Negrutiu et al. 2020 ; Soroye et al. 2020 ; Wagner 2020 ,  2021 ; Anonymous 2021 ; Zattara and Aizen 2021 ).

Terrestrial species

There are several effects on biodiversity caused largely by climate change. Maxwell et al. ( 2019 ) reviewed 519 studies on ecological responses to extreme climate events (cyclones, droughts, floods, cold waves and heat waves) between 1941 and 2015 covering amphibians, birds, fish, invertebrates, mammals, reptiles and plants. Negative ecological responses have been reported for 57% of all documented groups including 31 cases of local extirpations and 25% of population decline.

Increase in temperature impacts two aspects of growth and development in plants and animals. One of them is a shift in distributional range of species and the other is the shift in phenological events. Plant and animal species have adapted to their native habitat over 1000s of years. As the temperature gets warmer in their native habitat, species tend to move to higher altitudes and towards the poles in search of suitable temperature and other environmental conditions. There are a number of reports on climate change-induced shifts in the distributional range of both plant and animal species (Grabherr et al. 1994 ; Cleland et al. 2007 ; Parmesan and Yohe 2003 ; Beckage et al. 2008 ; Pimm 2009 ; Miller-Rushing et al. 2010 ; Lovejoy and Hannah 2005 ; Lobell et al. 2011 ). Many species may not be able to keep pace with the changing weather conditions and thus lag behind leading to their eventual extinction. Long-term observations extending for over 100 years have shown that many species of bumblebees in North-America and Europe are not keeping up with the changing climate and are disappearing from the southern portions of their range (Kerr et al. 2015 ). Most of the flowering plants depend on animals for seed dispersal (Beckman et al. 2020 ). Defaunation induced by climate change and other environmental disturbances has reduced long-distance seed dispersal. Prediction of dispersal function for fleshly-fruited species has already reduced the capacity of plants to track climate change by 60%, thus severely affecting their range shifts (Fricke et al. 2022 ).

Climate change induced shifts in species would threaten their sustenance even in protected areas as they hold a large number of species with small distributional range (Velasquez-Tibata et al. 2013 ). Pautasso ( 2012 ) has highlighted the sensitivity of European birds to the impacts of climate change in their phenology (breeding time), migration patterns, species distribution and abundance. Metasequoia glyptostroboides is one of the critically endangered species with extremely small populations distributed in South-Central China. Zhao et al. ( 2020 ) analysed detailed meteorological and phenological data from 1960 to 2016 and confirmed that climate warming has altered the phenology and compressed the climatically suitable habitat of this species. Their studies revealed that the temperature during the last 57 years has increased significantly with the expansion of the length of growing season of this species. Climatically suitable area of the species has contracted at the rate of 370.8 km 2 per decade and the lower and upper elevation limits shrunk by 27 m over the last 57 years.

The other impact of climate change on plant and animal species has been in their phenological shift. Phenology is the timing of recurring seasonal events; it is a sort of Nature’s calendar for plants and animals. In flowering plants, various reproductive events such as the timing of flowering, fruiting, their intensity, and longevity are important phenological events, and in animals some of the phenological events include building of nests in birds, migration of animal species, timing of egg laying and development of the larva, pupa and adult in insects. Phenological events of both plants and animals are generally fixed in specific time of the year as they are based on environmental cues such as temperature, light, precipitation and snow melt. Phenological timings of species are the results of adaptations over 100 s of years to the prevailing environment. Wherever there is a mutualism between plants and animals, there is a synchrony between the two partners. For example in flowering plants, flowering is associated with the availability of pollinators and fruiting is associated with the availability of seed dispersers and optimal conditions for seed germination and seedling establishment. In animals also, phenological events are adapted to suit normal growth and reproduction. In temperate regions, melting of ice initiates leafing in plants; this is followed by the flowering in the spring. Similarly, warming of the climate before the spring induces hatching of the hibernating insects which feed on newly developed foliage. Insects emerge and ready to pollinate the flowers by the time the plants bloom.

The dates of celebration of the cherry blossom festival, an important cultural event in Japan that coincides with the peak of flowering period of this species and for which > 1000 years of historical records are available, has shown advances in the dates of the festival in recent decades (Primack et al. 2009 ). The records between 1971 and 2000 showed that the trees flowered an average of 7 days earlier than all the earlier years (Allen et al. 2013 ). These advances were correlated with increasing temperature over the years. Spring temperatures in the Red River valley, North Dakota, USA have extended the period of the growing season of plants significantly over the years. Flowering times, for which data are available from1910 to1961, have been shown to be sensitive to at least one variable related to temperature or precipitation for 75% of the 178 species investigated (Dunnell and Traverse 2011 ). The first flowering time has been significantly shifted earlier or later over the last 4 years of their study in 5–15% of the observed species relative to the previous century. Rhododendron arboretum , one of the central Himalayan tree species, flowers from early February to mid-March. Generalized additive model using real-time field observations (2009–2011) and herbarium records (1893–2003) indicated 88–97 days of early flowering in this species over the last 100 years (Gaira et al. 2014 ). This early flowering was correlated with an increase in the temperature.

One of the consequences of a shift in the distributional range of species and phenological timings is the possible uncoupling of synchronization between the time of flowering of plant species and availability of its pollinators (see Gerard et al. 2020 ). When a plant species migrates, its pollinator may not be able to migrate; similarly when a pollinator migrates, the plant species on which it depends for sustenance may not migrate. Memmott et al. ( 2007 ) explored potential disruption of pollination services due to climate change using a network of 1420 pollinators and 429 plant species by simulating consequences of phenological shifts that can be expected with doubling of atmospheric CO 2 . They reported phenological shifts which reduced available floral resources to 17–50% of all pollinator species. A long-term study since the mid-1970s in the Mediterranean Basin has indicated that unlike the synchrony present in the earlier decades between the flowering of plant species and their pollinators, insect phenoevents during the last decade showed a steeper advance than those of plants (Gordo and Sanz 2005 ). Similar asynchrony has been reported between the flowering of Lathyrus and one of its pollinators, Hoplitis fulgida (Forrest and Thomson 2011 ). Asynchrony between flowering and appearance of pollinator has also been reported in a few other cases (Kudo and Ida 2013 ; Kudo 2014 ). Such asynchrony could affect the sustenance of plant and/or pollinator species in the new environment.

Marine species

Amongst the marine species, corals are the most affected groups due to the rise in temperature and acidity of oceans. Corals live in a symbiotic relationship with algae which provide colour and photosynthates to the corals. Corals are extremely sensitive to heat and acidity; even an increase of 2–3°F of ocean water above normal results in expulsion of the symbiotic algae from their tissues leading to their bleaching (Hoegh-Guldberg et al. 2017 ). When this bleached condition continues for several weeks, corals die. Nearly one-third of the Great Barrier Reef, the world’s largest coral reef system that sustains huge Australian tourism industry, has died as a result of global warming (Hughes et al. 2018 ). According to the experts the reef will be unrecognizable in another 50 years if greenhouse gas emissions continue at the current rate.

According to UNESCO, coral reefs in all 29 reef-containing World Heritage sites would cease to exist as functioning ecosystems by the end of this century if greenhouse gas emissions continue to be emitted at the present rate (Elena et al. 2020 ). Recent assessment of the risk of ecosystem collapse to coral reefs of the Western Indian Ocean, covering about 5% of the global total, range from critically endangered to vulnerable (Obura et al. 2021 ). Coral reefs provide suitable habitat for thousands of other species, including sharks, turtles and whales. If corals die, the whole ecosystem will get disrupted.

Melting of ice in Arctic region due to global warming is threatening the survival of native animals such as polar bear, Arctic fox and Arctic wolf. Rising of sea level also leads to the extinction of a large number of endangered and endemic plant and animal species in submerged coastal areas and islands. Over 180,000 islands around the globe contain 20% of the world’s biodiversity. Bellard et al. ( 2013 ) assessed consequences of sea level rise of 1–6 m for 10 insular biodiversity hotspots and their endemic species at the risk of potential extinction. Their study revealed that 6 to19% of the 4447 islands would be entirely submerged depending on the rise of sea level; three of them, the Caribbean islands, the Philippines and Sundaland, displayed the most significant hotspots representing a potential threat for 300 endemic species. According to the Centre for Biological Diversity ( 2013 ) 233 federally protected threatened and endangered species in 23 coastal states are threatened if rising sea is unchecked. Recently more than 100 Aquatic Science Societies representing over 80,000 scientists from seven continents sounded climate alarm (Bonar 2021 ). They have highlighted the effects of climate change on marine and aquatic ecosystems and have called on the world leaders and public to undertake mitigation measures to protect and sustain aquatic systems and theirs services.

Mitigation measures

The principal mitigation measures against climate change are obvious; they include significant reduction in greenhouse gas emission, prevention of deforestation and increase in the forest cover. To reduce greenhouse gas emission, use of coal and fossil fuels needs to be reduced markedly. As climate change is a global challenge, local solutions confined to one or a few countries do not work; we need global efforts. Many attempts are being made to achieve these objectives at the global level since many decades. Mitigation measures are largely at the level of diplomatic negotiations involving states and international organizations, Governments and some nongovernmental organizations. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was established by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) in 1988. Its mandate was to provide political leaders with periodic scientific assessments concerning climate change, its implications and risks, and also to put forward adaptation and mitigation strategies. In 1992 more than 1700 World scientists, including the majority of living Nobel laureates gave the first Warning to Humanity about climate change and associated problems. They expressed concern about potential damage to the Planet Earth by human-induced environmental changes such as climate change, continued human population growth, forest loss, biodiversity loss and ozone depletion. Conference of Parties (COP) of the UN Convention on Climate Change was established in 1992 under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to discuss global response to climate change. Its first meeting (COP 1) was held in Berlin in March 1995 and is being held every year since then. The Fifth Assessment Report of the IPCC, released in November 2014, projected an increase in the mean global temperature of 3.7 to 4.8 °C by 2100, relative to preindustrial levels (1850), in the absence of new policies to mitigate climate change; it highlighted that such an increase would have serious consequences. This prediction compelled the participating countries at the COP 21 held in Paris in December 2015 to negotiate effective ways and means of reducing carbon emissions. In this meeting the goal to limit global warming to well below 2 °C, preferably to 1.5 °C, compared to preindustrial levels was adapted by 196 participating countries as a legally binding treaty on climate change. It also mandated review of progress every 5 years and the development of a fund containing $100 billion by 2020, which would be replenished annually, to help developing countries to adopt non-greenhouse-gas-producing technologies.

In 2017, after 25 years after the first warning, 15,354 world scientists from 184 countries gave ‘second warning to humanity’ (Ripple et al. 2017 ). They emphasized that with the exception of stabilizing the stratospheric ozone layer, humanity has failed to make sufficient progress in solving these environmental challenges, and alarmingly, most of them are getting far worse. Analysis of Warren et al. ( 2018 ) on a global scale on the effects of climate change on the distribution of insects, vertebrates and plants indicated that even with 2 °C temperature increase, approximately 18% of insects, 16% of plants and 8% of vertebrates species are projected to loose > 50% geographic range; this falls to 6% for insects, 8% for plants and 4% for vertebrates when temperature increase is reduced to 1.5 °C.

UN Report on climate change (prepared by > 90 authors from 40 countries after examining 6000 scientific publications) released in October 2018 in South Korea also gave serious warning to the world. Some of the salient features of this report were:

• Overshooting 1.5 °C will be disastrous. It will have devastating effects on ecosystems, communities and economies. By 2040 there could be global food shortages, the inundation of coastal cities and a refugee crisis unlike the world has ever seen.
• Even 1.5 °C warming would rise sea levels by 26–77 cm by 2100; 2 °C would add another 10 cm which would affect another 10 million people living in coastal regions.
• Coral reefs are projected to decline 70–90% even at 1.5 °C. At 2 °C, 99% of the reefs would be ravaged.
• Storms, floods, droughts and forest fires would increase in intensity and frequency.
• The world has already warmed by about 1 °C since preindustrial times. We are currently heading for about 3–4 °C of warming by 2100.
• Unless rapid and deep reductions in CO 2 and other greenhouse gas emissions occur in the coming decades, achieving the goals of the 2015 Paris Agreement will be beyond reach.
• To keep 1.5 °C target, coal’s share of global electricity generation must be cut from the present 37% to no more than 2% by 2050. Renewable power must be greatly expanded. Net CO 2  emissions must come down by 45% (from 2010 levels) by 2030 and reach net zero (emissions of greenhouse gases no more than the amount removed from the atmosphere) around 2050.

This report awakened the world Governments about the seriousness of the climate change. The COP 26 meeting which was to be held in 2020 had to be postponed due to Covid-19 pandemic. The first part of the sixth report of IPCC was released in August 2021 (AR6 Climate Change 2021 ), just before the postponed COP 26 meeting was to be held; it highlighted that the threshold warming of 1.5 °C (the target of keeping the warming by the end of the century) would reach in the next 20 years itself and if the present trends continue, it would reach 2.7 °C by the end of the century.

Under this predicted climate emergency (see Ripple et al. 2020 ), COP 26 meeting was held in Glasgow, Scotland between October 31 and November 12, 2021. Nearly 200 countries participated in this meeting. The main aim of the COP 26 was finalization of the rules and procedures for implementation of the Paris agreement to keep the temperature increase to 1.5 °C. A number of countries including USA and European Union pledged to reach net zero carbon emission by 2050. China pledged to reach net zero emissions by 2060 and India by 2070. India also committed to reduce the use of fossil fuels by 40% by 2030. More than 100 countries committed to reduce worldwide methane emissions by 30% (of 2020 levels) by 2030 and to end deforestation by 2030. The average atmospheric concentration of methane reached a record 1900 ppb in September 2021; it was 1638 ppb in 1983 (US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), highlighting the importance of acting on pledges made at the COP 26.

One of the limitations of COP meetings has been nonadherence of the commitment made by developed countries at Paris meeting to transfer US $100 billion annually to developing and poor countries to support climate mitigation and loss of damage, through 2025; only Germany, Norway and Sweden are paying their share. Several experts feel that the adoption of the Glasgow Climate Pact was weaker than expected. According to the assessment of Climate Action Tracker, a non-profit independent global analysis platform, emission reduction commitments by countries still lead to 2.4 °C warming by 2100. However, a positive outcome of the meeting was that it has kept alive the hopes of achieving the 1.5 °C goal by opening the options for further discussion in the coming COP meetings. Apart from implementation of mitigation pledges made by countries, it is also important to pay attention to climate adaptation since the negative effects of climate change will continue for decades or longer (AR6 Climate Change 2021 ). Investment in early warning is an important means of climate adaptation, which is lacking in many parts of Africa and Latin America.

Conclusions

Climate change has now become the fastest growing global threat to human welfare. The world has realized the responsibility of the present generation as it is considered to be the last generation capable of taking effective measures to reverse its impact. If it fails, human civilization is likely to be doomed beyond recovery. As emphasized by many organizations, the climate crisis is inherently unfair; poorer countries will suffer its consequences more than others. India is one amongst the nine countries identified to be seriously affected by climate change. According to a WHO analysis ( 2016 ) India could face more than 25% of all global climate-related deaths by 2050 due to decreasing food availability. China is expected to face the highest number of per capita food insecurity deaths. Bhutan, a small Himalayan kingdom with 60% forest cover, is the most net negative carbon emission country; its GHG emission is less than the amount removed from the atmosphere. Other countries should aim to emulate Bhutan as early as possible.

A number of other options have been suggested to trap atmospheric carbon dioxide (Climate change mitigation—Wikipedia). Carbon storage through sequestration of organic carbon by deep-rooted grasses has been one such approach (Fisher et al. 1994 ). Several studies from Africa have indicated that introduction of Brachiaria grasses in semi-arid tropics can help to increase not only carbon stock in the soil but also yield greater economic returns (Gichangi et al. 2017 ). Recently a new seed bank, ‘Future Seeds’ was dedicated at Palmira, Columbia to store world’s largest collection of beans, cassava, and tropical forage grasses for the use of breeders to create better performing and climate-resistant crops (Stokstad 2022 ). Brachiaria humidicola is one of the tropical forage grass stored in this seed bank for its potential benefit in carbon sequestration. Lavania and Lavania ( 2009 ) have suggested vetiver ( Vetiveria zizanioides ), a C 4 perennial grass, with massive fibrous root system that can grow up to 3 m into the soil in 1 year, as a potential species for this purpose. Vetiver is estimated to produce 20–30 tonnes of root dry matter per hectare annually and holds the potential of adding 1 kg atmospheric CO 2 annually to the soil carbon pool per m 2 surface area. Carbon dioxide capture and storage is another such potential approach. At present it is too expensive and this approach may have to wait until improvement of the technology, reduction in the cost and feasibility of transfer of the technology to developing countries (IPCC Special Report on carbon dioxide capture and storage 2005 ).

There has been some discussion on the role of climate change on speciation (Levin 2019 ; Gao et al. 2020 ). Some evolutionary biologists have observed that the rate of speciation has accelerated in the recent past due to climate change and would continue to increase in the coming decades (Thomas 2015 ; Levin 2019 ; Gao et al. 2020 ). They propose that auto- and allo-polyploidy are going to be the primary modes of speciation in the next 500 years (Levin 2019 , see also Gao 2019 , Villa et al. 2022 ). However, extinction of species imposed by climate change may excel positive impact on plant speciation via polyploidy (Gao et al. 2020 ). The question is will climate change induce higher level of polyploidy and other genetic changes in crop species also that would promote evolution of new genotypes to sustain productivity and quality of food grains? If so, it would ameliorate, to some extent, food and nutritional insecurity of humans especially in the developing world.

Effective implementation of the pledges made by different countries in COP 26 and actions to be taken in the coming COP meetings are going to be crucial and determine humanity’s success or failure in tackling climate change emergency. COP 26 climate pact to cut greenhouse gas emissions, end of deforestation and shift to sustainable transport is certainly more ambitious then earlier COPs. There are also many other positive signals for reducing fossil fuels. Scientists have started using more precise monitoring equipment to collect more reliable environmental data, and more options are being developed by researchers on renewable and alternate energy sources, and to capture carbon from industries or from the air (Chandler D, MIT News 24 Oct 2019, Swain F, BBC Future Planet, 12 March 2021). Scotland has become coal-free and Costa Rica has achieved 99% renewable energy. India has reduced the use of fossil fuel by 40% of it installed capacity, 8 years ahead of its commitment at the COP 26.

Further, people are becoming more conscious to reduce carbon emission by following climate-friendly technologies. Human sufferings associated with an increase in natural disasters throughout the world have focussed public attention on climate change as never before. They also realise the benefits of improved air quality by reducing consumption of coal and fossil fuels on health and ecosystems. The demand for electric vehicles is steadily growing. Reforestation is being carried out in a large scale in many countries. Recent studies across a range of tree plantations and native forests in 53 countries have revealed that carbon storage, soil erosion control, water conservation and biodiversity benefits are delivered better from native forests compared to monoculture tree plantations, although the latter yielded more wood (Hua et al. 2022 ). This has to be kept in mind in reforestation programmes. Hopefully the world will be able to realize the goal of limiting the temperature rise to 1.5 °C by the end of the century and humanity would learn to live in harmony with Nature.

Declarations

The author declares no conflict of interest.

• Abdurrahman MI, Chaki S, Saini G. Stubble burning: effects on health & environment, regulations and management practices. Environ. Adv. 2020 doi: 10.1016/j.envadv.2020.100011. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Allen JM, Terres MA, Katsuki T, et al. Modelling daily flowering probabilities: expected impact of climate change on Japanese cherry phenology. Global Change Biol. 2013; 20 :1251–1263. doi: 10.1111/gcb.12364. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Anonymous (2018) https://www.euronews.com/2018/02/02/rising-sea-levels-threat-a-shrinking-european-coastline-in-2100
• Anonymous (2021) Special Issue. Global decline in the Anthropocene. Proc Natl Acad Sci, USA 118: No 2
• Aquilera R, Curringham TW, Gershunov A, Benmarhnia T. Wildfire smoke impacts respiratory health more than fine particles from other sources: observational evidence from Southern California. Nat. Commun. 2021 doi: 10.1038/s41467-021-21708-0. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• AR6 Climate Change: The sixth assessment report on climate change. IPCC, Geneva (2021).  https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/
• Beckage B, Osborne B, Gavin DG, et al. A rapid upward shift of a forest ecotone during 40 years of warming in the Green Mountains of Vermont. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA. 2008; 105 :4197–4202. doi: 10.1073/pnas.0708921105. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Beckman NG, Aslan CE, Rogers HS. The role of seed dispersal in plant populations: perspectives and advances in a changing world. AoB Plants. 2020 doi: 10.1093/aobpla/plaa010. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Bellard C, Leclerc C, Courchamp F. Impact of sea level rise on the 10 insular biodiversity hotspots. Global Ecol. Biogeogr. 2013 doi: 10.1111/geb.12093. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Bloom AJ, Plant RC. Wheat grain yield decreased over the past 35 years, but protein content did not change. J. Exptl. Bot. 2021; 72 :6811–6821. doi: 10.1093/jxb/erab343. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Bonar SA. More than 111 aquatic-science societies sound climate alarm. Nature. 2021; 589 :352. doi: 10.1038/d41586-021-00107-x. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Bras TA, Seixas J, Nuno C, Jonas J. Severity of drought and heatwave crop losses tripled over the last five decades in Europe. Environ. Res. Lett. 2021 doi: 10.1088/1748-9326/abf004. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Ceballos G, Ehrlich PP, Barnosky AD, et al. Accelerated modern human-induced species losses: Entering the sixth mass extinction. Sci. Adv. 2015; 1 :e1400253. doi: 10.1126/sciadv.1400253. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Centre for Biological Diversity: Deadly Waters: How Rising Seas Threaten 233 Endangered Species. (2013) https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/campaigns/sea-level_rise/pdfs/Sea_Level_Rise_Report_2013_web.pdf
• Cleland EE, Chuine I, Menzel A, et al. Shifting plant phenology in response to global change. Trends Ecol. Evol. 2007; 22 :357–365. doi: 10.1016/j.tree.2007.04.003. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Deutsch CA, Tewksbury JJ, Tigchelaar M, et al. Increase in crop losses to insect pests in a warming climate. Science. 2018; 361 :916–919. doi: 10.1126/science.aat3466. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Dirzo R, Raven PH. Global state of biodiversity and loss. Ann. Rev. Environ. Res. 2003; 28 :137–167. doi: 10.1146/annurev.energy.28.050302.105532. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Dunnell KL, Travers SE. Shifts in the flowering phenology of the northern Great Plains: patterns over 100 years. Am. J. Bot. 2011; 98 :935–945. doi: 10.3732/ajb.1000363. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Elena O, Matthew E-S, Matea O, et al. A conservation assessment of all natural World Heritage sites. Gland: IUCN; 2020. IUCN World Heritage Outlook 3. [ Google Scholar ]
• Fisher MJ, Rao IM, Ayarza MA, et al. Carbon storage by introduced deep-rooted grasses in the South American Savannas. Nature. 1994; 371 :236–238. doi: 10.1038/371236a0. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Forrest JRK, Thomson JD. An examination of synchrony between insect emergence and flowering in the Rocky Mountain meadows. Ecol. Monogr. 2011; 81 :469–491. doi: 10.1890/10-1885.1. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Fricke EC, Ordonez A, Rogers HS, et al. The effects of defaunation on plants’ capacity to track climate change. Science. 2022; 375 :210–214. doi: 10.1126/science.abk3510. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Gaira KS, Rawal R, Rawat B, Bhatt ID. Impact of climate change on the flowering of Rhododendron arboreum in central Himalaya, India. Curr. Sci. 2014; 106 :1735–1738. [ Google Scholar ]
• Gao JG. Dominant plant speciation types. A commentary on: plant speciation in the age of climate change. Ann. Bot. 2019; 124 :iv–vi. doi: 10.1093/aob/mcz174. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Gao JG, Liu H, Wang N, et al. Plant extinction excels plant speciation in the Anthropocene. BMC Plant Biol. 2020; 20 :430. doi: 10.1186/s12870-020-02646-3. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Genes L, Dirzo R. Restoration of plant–animal interactions in terrestrial ecosystems. Biol. Conserv. 2021 doi: 10.1016/j.biocon.2021.109393. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Gerard M, Vanderplanck M, Wood T, Michez D. Global warming and plant-pollinator mismatches. Emerg. Top. Life Sci. 2020; 4 :77–86. doi: 10.1042/ETLS20190139. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Getirana A, Libonati R, Cataldi M. Brazil is in water crisis—it needs a drought plan. Nature. 2021; 600 :218–220. doi: 10.1038/d41586-021-03625-w. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Gichangi EM, Njarui DMG, Gatheru M. Plant shoots and roots biomass of Brachiaria grasses and their effect on soil carbon in the semi-arid tropics of Kenya. Trop. Subtrop. Agroecosyst. 2017; 20 :65–74. [ Google Scholar ]
• Gordo O, Sanz JJ. Phenology and climate change: a long-term study in a Mediterranean locality. Oecologia. 2005; 146 :484–495. doi: 10.1007/s00442-005-0240-z. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Grabherr G, Gottfried M, Pauli H. Climate effects on mountain plants. Nature. 1994; 369 :448. doi: 10.1038/369448a0. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Hausfather Z, Drake HF, Abbott T, Schmidt GA. Evaluating the performance of past climate model projections. Geophys. Res. Lett. 2019 doi: 10.1029/2019GL085378. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Heinrich B. Keeping a cool head: honeybee thermoregulation. Science. 1979; 205 :1269–1271. doi: 10.1126/science.205.4412.1269. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Heywood VH. Plant conservation in the Anthropocene: challenges and future prospects. Plant Divers. 2017; 39 :314–330. doi: 10.1016/j.pld.2017.10.004. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Hoegh-Guldberg O, Poloczanska ES, Skirving W, Dove S. Coral Reef Ecosystems under climate change and ocean acidification. Front. Mar. Sci. 2017; 4 :158. doi: 10.3389/fmars.2017.00158. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Hua F, Bruijnzeel LA, Meli P, et al. The biodiversity and ecosystem service contributions and trade-offs of forest restoration approaches. Science. 2022 doi: 10.1126/science.abl4649. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Hughes TP, Kerry TJ, Baird AH, et al. Global warming transforms coral reef assemblages. Nature. 2018; 556 :492–496. doi: 10.1038/s41586-018-0041-2. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Immerzeel WW, Lutz AF, Andrade M, et al. Importance and vulnerability of the world’s water towers. Nature. 2020; 577 :364–369. doi: 10.1038/s41586-019-1822-y. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• IPBES: The intergovernmental science-policy platform on biodiversity and ecosystem services. In: Sustainable development goals. IPBES, Bonn (2019)
• IPCC: IPCC special report on carbon dioxide capture and storage (2005). https://www.ipcc.ch›2018/03›srccs_wholereport-1
• Indian State Forest Report: Forest Survey of India (2019). https://www.drishtiias.com
• Jägermeyr J, Müller C, Ruane AC, et al. Climate impacts on global agriculture emerge earlier in new generation of climate and crop models. Nat. Food. 2021 doi: 10.1038/s43016-021-00400-y. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Kerr JT, Pinder A, Galpern P, et al. Climate impacts on bumblebees coverage across continents. Science. 2015; 349 :177–180. doi: 10.1126/science.aaa7031. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• King O, Bhattacharya A, Ghuffar S, Tait A, et al. Six decades of glacier mass changes around Mt. Everest are revealed by historical and contemporary Images. One Earth. 2021 doi: 10.1016/j.oneear.2020.10.019. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Kudo G. Vulnerability of phenological synchrony between plants and pollinators in an alpine ecosystem. Ecol. Res. 2014; 29 :571–581. doi: 10.1007/s11284-013-1108-z. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Kudo G, Ida TY. Early onset of spring increases the mismatch between plants and pollinators. Ecology. 2013; 94 :2311–2320. doi: 10.1890/12-2003.1. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Lavania UC, Lavania S. Sequestration of atmospheric carbon into subsoil horizons through deep-rooted grasses-vetiver grass model. Curr. Sci. 2009; 97 :618–619. [ Google Scholar ]
• Lee E, Carrivick JL, Quincey DJ, et al. Accelerated mass loss of Himalayan glaciers since the little ice age. Sci. Rep. 2021; 11 :24284. doi: 10.1038/s41598-021-03805-8. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Leech DI, Crick HQP. Influence of climate change on the abundance, distribution and phenology of woodland bird species in temperate regions. Ibis. 2007; 149 (Suppl. 2):128–145. doi: 10.1111/j.1474-919X.2007.00729.x. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Leeming J. Meet the food pioneer whose meat replacements are rocking the gravy boat. Nature. 2021; 590 :176. doi: 10.1038/d41586-021-00264-z. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Lenzen M, Moran D, Kanemoto K, et al. International trade drives biodiversity threats in developing nations. Nature. 2012; 486 :109–112. doi: 10.1038/nature11145. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Levin DA. Plant speciation in the age of climate change. Ann. Bot. 2019; 124 :769–775. doi: 10.1093/aob/mcz108. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Lobell DB, Schlenker W, Costa-Roberts J. Climate trends and global crop production since 1980. Science. 2011; 333 :616–620. doi: 10.1126/science.1204531. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Lovejoy TE, Hannah L, editors. Biodiversity and climate change: transforming the biosphere. New Haven, London: Yale University Press; 2005. [ Google Scholar ]
• Manisalidis I, Stavropoulou E, Stavropoulos A, Bezirtzoglou E. Environmental and health impacts of air pollution: a review. Front. Public Health. 2020 doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2020.00014. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Maxwell SL, Butt N, Maron M, et al. Conservation implications of ecological responses to extreme weather and climate events. Divers. Distrib. 2019; 25 :613–625. doi: 10.1111/ddi.12878. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• McCrystall MR, Stroeve J, Serreze M, et al. New climate models reveal faster and larger increases in Arctic precipitation than previously projected. Nat. Commun. 2021 doi: 10.1038/s41467-021-27031-y. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Memmott J, Craze PE, Waser NM, Price MV. Global warming and disruption of plant-pollinator interactions. Ecol. Lett. 2007; 10 :710–717. doi: 10.1111/j.1461-0248.2007.01061.x. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Miller-Rushing A, Hoye TH, Inouye D, Post E. The effects of phenological mismatches on demography. Philos. Trans. R. Soc. B. 2010; 365 :3177–3186. doi: 10.1098/rstb.2010.0148. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Negrutiu I, Frohlich MW, Hamant O. Flowering plants in the Anthropocene: a political agenda. Trends Plant. Sci. 2020; 25 :349–368. doi: 10.1016/j.tplants.2019.12.008. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Obura D, Gudka M, Samoilys M, et al. Vulnerability to collapse of coral reef ecosystems in the Western Indian Ocean. Nat. Sustain. 2021; 5 :104–113. doi: 10.1038/s41893-021-00817-0. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• OXFAM International: 5 natural disasters that beg for climate action. (2021) https://www.oxfam.org/en/5-natural-disasters-beg-climate-action
• Pacheco P, Mo K, Dudley N, et al. Deforestation fronts: drivers and responses in a changing world. Gland: WWF; 2021. [ Google Scholar ]
• Parmesan C, Yohe G. A globally coherent fingerprint of climate change impacts across natural systems. Nature. 2003; 421 :37–42. doi: 10.1038/nature01286. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Pautasso M. Observed impacts of climate change on terrestrial birds in Europe: an overview. Ital. J. Zool. 2012; 79 :296–314. doi: 10.1080/11250003.2011.627381. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Pennisi E. Lyme-carrying ticks live longer—and could spread farther—thanks to warmer winters. Science. 2022 doi: 10.1126/science.acz9985. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Pimentel D, Pimentel M. Sustainability of meat-based and plant-based diets and the environment. Am. J. Clin. Nutr. 2003; 78 :660S–663S. doi: 10.1093/ajcn/78.3.660S. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Pimm SL. Climate disruption and biodiversity. Curr. Biol. 2009; 19 :R595–R601. doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2009.05.055. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Potapov P, Turubanova S, Hansen MC, et al. Global maps of cropland extent and change show accelerated cropland expansion in the twenty-first century. Nat. Food. 2021 doi: 10.1038/s43016-021-00429-z. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Primack RB, Higuchi H, Miller-Rushing AJ. The impact of climate change on cherry trees and other species in Japan. Biol. Conserv. 2009; 142 :1943–1949. doi: 10.1016/j.biocon.2009.03.016. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Pruniki M, Cauwenberghs N, Lee J, et al. Air pollution exposure is linked with methylation of immunoregulatory genes, altered immune cell profiles, and increased blood pressure in children. Sci. Rep. 2021; 11 :4067. doi: 10.1038/s41598-021-83577-3. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Rader R, Reilly J, Bartomeus I, Winfree R. Native bees buffer the negative impact of climate warming on honey bee pollination of watermelon crops. Global Change Biol. 2013; 19 :3103–3110. doi: 10.1111/gcb.12264. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Raven PH. Biological extinction and climate change. In: Al-Delaimy WK, Ramanathan V, SánchezSorondo M, editors. Health of people, health of planet and our responsibility. Cham: Springer; 2020. pp. 11–20. [ Google Scholar ]
• Razzaq A, Wani SH, Saleem F, et al. Rewilding crops for climate resilience: economic analysis and de novo domestication strategies. J Exptl Bot. 2021; 72 :6123–6139. doi: 10.1093/jxb/erab276. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Ripple WJ, Wolf C, Newsome TM, et al. World scientists’ warning to humanity: a second notice. Bioscience. 2017; 67 :1026–1028. doi: 10.1093/biosci/bix125. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Ripple WJ, Wolf C, Newsome TM, et al. World Scientists’ warning of a climate emergency. Bioscience. 2020; 70 :8–12. doi: 10.1093/biosci/biz152. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Salvatteci R, Schneider RR, Field EGD, et al. Smaller fish species in a warm and oxygen-poor Humboldt Current system. Science. 2022; 375 :101–104. doi: 10.1126/science.abj0270. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Sejiyan V, Bhatta R, Malik PK, et al. Livestock as sources of greenhouse gases and its significance to climate change. In: Moya BL, Pous J, et al., editors. Greenhouse gases. London: IntechOpen; 2016. [ Google Scholar ]
• Shivanna KR. The sixth mass extinction crisis and its impact on biodiversity and human welfare. Resonance. 2020; 25 :93–109. doi: 10.1007/s12045-019-0924-z. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Shivanna KR, Sanjappa M. Conservation of endemic and threatened flowering plants: challenges and priorities for India. J. Indian Bot. Soc. 2021; 101 :269–290. [ Google Scholar ]
• Shivanna KR, Tandon R, Koul M. ‘Global pollinator crisis’ and its impact on crop productivity and sustenance of biodiversity. In: Tandon R, Shivanna KR, Koul M, editors. Reproductive ecology of flowering plants: patterns and processes. Singapore: Springer; 2020. pp. 395–413. [ Google Scholar ]
• Sodhi NS, Ehrlich PR, editors. Conservation biology for all. Oxford: Oxford University Press; 2010. [ Google Scholar ]
• Soroye P, Newworld T, Kerr J. Climate change contributes to widespread declines among bumble bees across continents. Science. 2020; 367 :685–688. doi: 10.1126/science.aax8591. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Stokstad E. World’s largest bean and cassava collection gets a striking new home: “Future Seeds” gene bank will help plant breeders create new varieties of crops and carbon-storing grasses. ScienceInsider. 2022 doi: 10.1126/science.abq1510. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Thomas CD. Rapid acceleration of plant speciation during the Anthropocene. Trends Ecol. Evol. 2015; 30 :448–455. doi: 10.1016/j.tree.2015.05.009. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Velasquez-Tibata J, Salaman P, Catherine H, Graham CH. Effects of climate change on species distribution, community structure, and conservation of birds in protected areas in Colombia. Reg. Environ. Change. 2013; 13 :235–248. doi: 10.1007/s10113-012-032. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Villa S, Montagna M, Pierce S. Endemism in recently diverged angiosperms is associated with polyploidy. Plant Ecol. 2022 doi: 10.1007/s11258-022-01223-y9-y. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Voosen P. Key Antarctic ice shelf is within years of failure. Science. 2021; 374 :1420–1421. doi: 10.1126/science.acz9833. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Wagner DL. Insect decline in the Anthropocese. Ann. Rev. Entomol. 2020; 65 :457–480. doi: 10.1146/annurev-ento-011019-025151. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Wagner, D.L., Grames, E.M., Forister, M.L. et al.: Insect decline in the Anthropocene: Death by a thousand cuts. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 118 , e2023989118 (2021). 10.1073/pnas.2023989118 [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ]
• Warren R, Price J, Graham E, et al. The projected effect on insects, vertebrates and plants of limiting global warming to 1.5°C rather than 2°C. Science. 2018; 360 :791–795. doi: 10.1126/science.aar3646. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• WCRP Global Sea Level Budget Group Global sea-level budget 1993–present. Earth Syst. Sci. Data. 2018; 10 :1551–1590. doi: 10.5194/essd-10-1551-2018. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• WHO analysis . Monitoring health for the sustainable development goals. Geneva: WHO; 2016. World Health Statistics 2016. [ Google Scholar ]
• Wilson EO. Half-earth: our planet’s fight for life. New York: Liveright/Norton; 2016. [ Google Scholar ]
• Wilson EO, Peter FM, editors. Biodiversity. Washington DC: National Academy Press; 1988. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Zattara EE, Aizen MA. Worldwide occurrence of records suggest a global decline in bee species richness. One Earth. 2021; 4 :114–123. doi: 10.1016/j.oneear.2020.12.005. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Zhao Z, Wang Y, Zang Z, et al. Climate warming has changed phenology and compressed the climatically suitable habitat of Metasequoia Glyptostroboides over the last half century. Global Ecol. Conserv. 2020; 23 :e01140. doi: 10.1016/j.gecco.2020.e01140. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Zhu C, Kobayashi K, Loladze I, et al. Carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) levels this century will alter the protein, micronutrients, and vitamin content of rice grains with potential health consequences for the poorest rice-dependent countries. Sci. Adv. 2018; 4 :eaaq012. doi: 10.1126/sciadv.aaq1012. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Zhu T, Flavio C, De Lima F, De Smet I. The heat is on: how crop growth, development, and yield respond to high temperature. J. Exptl. Bot. 2021; 72 :7359–7373. doi: 10.1093/jxb/erab308. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]

Our news, reports and success stories in rainforest conservation

Find out more about conservation issues

• Meat production

Defending the world’s rainforests since 1986

Support our work to protect the world’s rainforests

• Donation certificates

Questions and answers about biodiversity

What is biodiversity exactly?

“Biodiversity” not only refers to the number of individual species, but also the genetic variety within and between species and the diversity of ecosystems and regions. The richness of functions and interdependencies in the relationships of species within ecosystems is also a factor. The actual number of species is therefore only one facet of biodiversity.

Does species diversity follow any patterns?

The diversity of species is lowest at the poles and increases toward the equator, with the deserts being obvious exceptions. Tropical rainforests and coral reefs are among the planet’s richest and most complex ecosystems. The areas with the greatest diversity of plant life are the tropical Andes and southeastern Asia. The Amazon basin, Madagascar and parts of southern and central Africa also compare favorably. Roughly the same holds true for animal life. Yasuní National Park in Ecuador, for example, has more tree species per hectare than the United States and Canada combined. A single hectare is home to 100,000 insect species. 40,000 species of plants can be found in the Amazon basin, and 30,000 of them occur only there. 20,000 species of beetle and 456 tree species have been recorded on a single hectare. By comparison, only around 30 tree species are native to the United Kingdom. In Amazonas state in Brazil, 95 different species of ants have been counted on a single tree – the numbers are truly mind-boggling. Again, only around 50 species of ants can be found throughout the UK.

How is biodiversity measured?

Biodiversity is determined by counting the number of species occurring in a given unit of area. The greater the species diversity within an area, the higher the biodiversity, which can be calculated using various methods, such as diversity indices.

How many species are there on the planet?

Around 1.8 million animal and plant species have been scientifically documented to date, and new ones are being discovered every day, with 12,000 to 25,000 new species being added to the list every year. While the “discovery” of mammals and birds frequently catches the public eye, insects and the like tend to attract less attention. Estimates of the number of undiscovered species range from three to seven million, of which the lion’s share are insects and other small creatures.

What are the world’s rarest species?

The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS)  report “State of the Wild - a Global Portrait” contains a list of animals most threatened by extinction. The critically endangered Cuban crocodile, for example, can only be found in two small habitats in Cuba. The vaquita, a small porpoise endemic to the northern Gulf of California, is also extremely rare – as of 2014, less than 100 individuals remained. A relative of the vaquita, the baiji or Yangtze River dolphin, has not been sighted since 2007 and is presumed extinct. Among primates, the orangutan is, of course, the poster child for endangered species. According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) , deforestation and the spread of oil palm plantations in Indonesia are the biggest threats to the survival of great apes. The white-headed langur is one of the rarest primates in the world. Only 59 individuals remain – all on a single island in Vietnam. The Yangtze giant softshell turtle is found only in China and Vietnam. According to the IUCN Red List , only four individuals remained in 2012.

How many species go extinct every day?

On average, we lose about 150 species a day – that’s around 55,000 every year! Many species will have become extinct due to human encroachment on their habitats long before we have discovered the true wealth of biodiversity we are destroying. The United Nations declared 2010 to be the International Year of Biodiversity to celebrate life on earth and underscore its precious nature. Once a species is lost, it is gone forever: we will never again be able to experience a Steller’s sea cow – a marine mammal related to the dugong and manatee. The sea cows were hunted to extinction by our ancestors in 1768 – only 27 years after they were discovered by Europeans. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has listed many thousands of endangered animal and plant species from around the world in its Red List . The list is by no means complete, however.

Why are so many species disappearing?

The relentless changes to the environment and habitat destruction by humans are by far the most important factors driving the current mass extinction. For example, the number of gorillas in Africa has plummeted by 60% in only the past twenty years due to widespread deforestation and animals falling victim to the wildlife trade and poaching. The oceans are also affected by overfishing, pollution, rising temperatures and acidification due to increasing CO2 levels.

What is a biodiversity hotspot?

The concept of “biodiversity hotspots” was developed by researchers as a way to manage and focus conservation work more effectively. Hotspots are regions characterized by numerous endemic plant and animal species living in a particularly vulnerable environment. In the year 2000, scientists writing in the journal Nature identified 25 biodiversity hotspots that cover only about 1.4% of the Earth's surface, or an area of approximately 2.1 million square kilometers. While these areas provide habitat to nearly half (44%) of all known plant species worldwide, only about a third of them have so far been placed under protection. All of these hotspots are endangered by factors such as timber harvesting and slash-and-burn clearing driven by strong demand for tropical timber, the expansion of the mining industry and the cultivation of crops such as oil palms, sugar cane and soy. A further major issue is the dramatic rise of organized, commercial poaching.

What are endemic species?

A species is “endemic” if it only occurs within a limited, relatively small area, such as a single island or archipelago, mountain range or forest. Among primates, examples include all of the lemur species that can only be found on the island of Madagascar. Berthe’s mouse lemur, which was only discovered in 2000, is the smallest of them, with a body length of only 9 cm and a weight of around 30 grams. The lemur is found only in the Kirindy forest on the island’s west coast. Queen Alexandra’s birdwing is another example. Found only in Papua New Guinea, It is the largest butterfly in the world, with a wingspan of 28 cm. Its caterpillars rely on a single plant species for food – one that is seriously threatened by the destruction of the rainforests.

Where are biodiversity hotspots located?

Most hotspots are in the tropics, as can be seen on the map  drawn up by N. Myers’ team. They can be found in Southeast Asia – especially in Malaysia and Indonesia –, Madagascar, the Andes, Central America and the Caribbean. They also exist in temperate regions such as the U.S. west coast, parts of Chile, the Mediterranean and New Zealand. Researchers have not yet fully established the reasons behind the extremely high biodiversity of rainforests. However, factors such as the lack of nutrients in the soil, year-round high solar radiation and precipitation play an important role. The lower influence of the ice ages near the equator and the rainforests’ great age, ranging in the millions of years, have contributed to their wealth of species. Diversity thus always arises in interaction with environmental conditions.

Why is biodiversity so important and worthy of protection?

Research has shown that biodiversity is a crucial factor for the properties and performance of ecosystems. Their stability depends in part on the complex interactions of their inhabitants. Massive human interference decimates individual species or drives them to extinction, while other existing species experience explosive growth, and yet others invade or are introduced by humans. This alters the nature of ecosystems or destroys them outright and impacts ecosystem services such as the provision of food and clean water.

What is being done to preserve biodiversity and its hotspots?

The United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD)  that was signed by 192 member states at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro  in 1992 is designed to provide a legal foundation for protecting biodiversity. The signatories to the convention commit to the protection of biodiversity, its sustainable use and the fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising out of the use of resources. This involves major conflicts of interest, however. Developed nations are the UN’s biggest financial backers and set the organization’s policy agenda. Their excessive hunger for commodities and energy are the primary cause of global environmental degradation. Since the nations mainly responsible for destroying the environment are now developing “protective concepts” and shaping environmental policy, the question arises whether their primary drivers are the conservation of nature or commercial interests. In any case, continuous economic growth and increasing resource consumption are not compatible with conserving nature. Furthermore, the convention does not provide for any way to enforce sanctions if environmental standards are not observed. A neutral body without vested interests to monitor compliance with regulations and objectives and impose tough sanctions in case of violations would certainly be helpful.

What was the 2012 Hyderabad Conference on Biological Diversity all about?

The United Nations regularly holds biodiversity conferences in various locations around the world. The topic of placing a monetary value on nature as the basis of life was on the agenda in India in 2012. British economics professor Sir Nicolas Stern put it quite succinctly: “If Earth were a bank, they’d bail it out” – an astute assessment, considering the responses of governments to the financial crisis of 2008. One of the key issues in India was funding for biodiversity conservation. No less important, however, is consistent action to implement the resolutions and impose sanctions for non-compliance.

How much will rescuing biodiversity cost?

According to a report by senior experts of the World Conservation Monitoring Centre of the United Nations Environment Programme , implementing a strategic plan to protect biodiversity will require $516 billion to $2.35 trillion by 2020. So far, however, the plan only exists on paper. It has a long way to go to achieve recognition under international law and thus become an enforceable instrument. Money alone will not save biodiversity, however. The main reason why the natural environment is being exploited, polluted and destroyed on such a grand scale is humanity’s hunger for resources. The only way to preserve ecosystems is to reduce our worldwide consumption significantly. This especially holds true for the inhabitants of the industrialized countries and the rich upper classes, since most people in the global South live in comparative poverty and thus have a minimal environmental footprint.

Why isn’t anything being done?

The content – i.e. the goals and obligations – of conventions is established by the member states and can be deemed binding under international law when ratified. And therein lies the problem: countries CAN recognize the content as binding, but they are not REQUIRED to do so.  Compliance with the convention is not enforced, and there are no consequences for countries that fall short in meeting their goals. Problems are thus continually being pushed further down the road without properly addressing them. There is also a huge difference between what politicians and officials are willing to say and the realities on the ground. Germany, for example, portrays itself as a pioneer in climate protection, yet the country’s resource consumption continues to grow. Germany has outsourced much of its heavy industry to countries like China, Brazil and India, while at the same time calling on such countries to do much more for the environment.

What role does biodiversity play in conservation concepts?

Unfortunately, biodiversity often takes a back seat when conservation measures are developed. Most concepts revolve mainly around attaching a monetary value to nature to determine how natural resources can be used to generate maximum revenue. They often overlook the fact that biodiversity is a decisive factor in the provision of ecosystem services.

What alternative options are there for protecting biodiversity?

In oil palm plantations and other industrial-scale monocultures, a handful of standardized high-performance plant varieties produce huge quantities of agricultural commodities. Increasingly sophisticated processes are then used to turn those raw materials into the seemingly endless variety of products on our supermarket shelves. This development, which is a major factor in our current epidemic of obesity and other nutrition-related health issues, comes at a high ecological price: depleted soils, deforestation, pollution and mass extinction. In light of this, the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD) urgently recommends traditional smallholder farming as the most effective and reliable way to combat world hunger and minimize agriculture’s impact on the environment. For example, improved cultivation methods, suitable seed and agro-ecological strategies offer considerable potential to improve yields. Wherever there is enough land, water, money and equipment, smallholders produce a much higher nutritional yield per hectare than industrial agriculture – and with a much lower environmental impact. It goes without saying that methods need to be adapted to local circumstances: optimized smallholder agriculture would be highly beneficial in many parts of India, for example. By contrast, the seminomadic indigenous peoples that inhabit the vastness of the Amazon basin would already benefit greatly from protection against the oil, tropical timber, gold and plantation industries.

How can I help promote biodiversity?

• Your contributions toward protecting biodiversity are limited only by your imagination. Anyone can raise awareness: explain the consequences of deforestation to your family, friends and acquaintances. Tell people about the threat of extinction and stimulate public discussion.
• Review your own lifestyle and consumption behavior. Avoid products that contain palm oil . With regard to wood, use products made of local rather than tropical timber . Do not support the trade with tropical animals (parrots, reptiles, etc.) and never keep them as pets. Reduce your meat consumption – or better yet, stop eating animal products altogether. Livestock feed is grown on an industrial scale on land that was once rainforest. If you must eat meat, buy organic, or from small farms that raise and slaughter their own livestock. Save energy wherever you can.

Support the work of Rainforest Rescue by signing and sharing our petitions. We also have numerous projects on the ground in rainforest countries that need financial support – your donations can go a long way toward saving the last unspoiled bits of paradise on our planet.

Biodiversity

Sep 12, 2022

Agriculture drives more than 90 percent of tropical deforestation

Subscribe to our newsletter..

Stay in the loop on rainforest conservation issues with our free newsletter!

We’re dedicated to rainforest conservation. Our petitions expose destructive projects and name the perpetrators. Please speak out to protect the world’s rainforests – your signature carries real weight!

• About Project
• Testimonials

Business Management Ideas

Essay on Biodiversity

List of short and long essays on biodiversity, biodiversity essay for kids and school students, essay on biodiversity – essay 1 (150 words), essay on biodiversity: types, importance and conclusion – essay 2 (250 words), essay on biodiversity: with threats and importance – essay 3 (300 words), essay on biodiversity: introduction, importance, decline and steps – essay 4 (400 words), essay on biodiversity – essay 5 (500 words), biodiversity essay for competitive exam and upsc civil services exam, essay on biodiversity: with conclusion – essay 6 (600 words), essay on biodiversity: facts, importance and preservation – essay 7 (750 words), essay on biodiversity in india – essay 8 (1000 words).

Introduction:

Biodiversity also known as biological diversity is the variables that exist among several species living in the ecosystem. These living organisms include marine, terrestrial and aquatic life. Biodiversity aims to understand the positions these organisms occupy in the broader ecosystem.

Importance of Biodiversity:

When there is biodiversity in our ecosystem it translates to a greener environment. This is because plant life thrives in a balanced ecosystem. This invariably affects humans as we consume plants for our survival. Also, a healthy ecosystem can help to reduce the risk of diseases and the way we respond to them.

Increasing Biodiversity:

Some changes could be encouraged to improve biodiversity in our environment.

Some of them are:

1. Stopping penetration of invasive alien species.

2. Using sustainable agricultural methods.

3. Having protected areas for spices to thrive.

4. Having an organic maintenance culture for fertilizers.

Conclusion:

To make the world a safe place for all organisms, we must maintain good health in all the ecosystems. This is the benefit of paying attention to biodiversity.

Diversity is the hallmark of nature. Things exist in different forms which creates diversity. Biodiversity is a significant and desirable variation in plant and animal existence on the surface of the earth. The variation exists due to genetics, species and the ecosystem or the habitat. Biodiversity is an important aspect in the world because it enables the survival and sustainability of living things on earth.

Types of Biodiversity:

The variation in living things has resulted in different types of biodiversity depending on the certain variables. Genetic diversity is due to the genetic components shared by living organisms. The species that have similar genes diverge and they develop differently thus creating biodiversity. Species diversity occurs when a habitat comprises different kinds of living things. Ecological diversity is through the interaction of living things that share common sources of energy in an ecosystem which contributes to biodiversity.

The existence of living things in an ecosystem and the functioning of the ecosystem contribute to the relevance of biodiversity in nature. Through biodiversity, living organisms are able to acquire food and other important resources to sustain their lives. The climate and environmental changes are regulated because of biodiversity. The culture is enriched through biodiversity as it involves existence of several groups of species and people in one environment.

All the three types of biodiversity are important to the existence of living organisms. The ecosystem is the hallmark of diversity because it helps to sustain the lives of diverse living things.

Biodiversity is the variability or the diversity of the different species of life forms. The planet earth is habitat for a wide variety of flora and fauna like plants, animals and other life forms.

What is Biodiversity?

Biodiversity or Biological diversity refers to the variety and variability of living beings on planet earth and it is the degree of variation of life. It represents the wealth of biological assets available on earth and encompasses microorganism, plants, animals and ecosystems such as coral reefs, forests, rainforests, deserts etc.

Threats to Biodiversity:

The growing population, industrialization, technology, etc., all are impacting biodiversity. The increased human activities have been reducing the natural area for plants, animals and other living things. A number of plants and animals have gone extinct because of increased deforestation and other factors. Growing pollution, causing global warming and climate change, is a big threat to biodiversity. The decline in biodiversity would in turn lead to imbalance in the ecosystem and would become a threat to the human race as well as other living organisms.

Different plants and animals are dependent on others to live and keep the natural surroundings in a balanced state. For example, human beings are dependent on various plants and animals for their food, shelter, safety, clothes etc. Similarly, every living species is dependent on some other species. It is, therefore, important to preserve biodiversity in our planet in order to maintain the ecological balance.

Protecting Biodiversity:

As we know, the biodiversity loss is a serious threat for human race, we all should work for maintaining biodiversity, and find out solutions to reduce the biodiversity decline. Since, air pollution and deforestation are major threats to biodiversity, these are the first things that need to be controlled. Government should frame stricter laws and organizations should sensitize people to be concerned about it and contribute their bit.

Biodiversity, also referred to as the biological diversity refers to the diversified form of plants and animals that exists in our planet . It also denotes each and every aspect of the ecosystem such as micro-organisms, coral reefs, rainforests, deserts, forests etc.,

A good balance in biodiversity supports human race and humans on the other hand must ensure to save biodiversity. This essay is going to talk about the importance of biodiversity and the role of human beings in safeguarding the ecosystem.

There are more than 300,000 species of flora that has been identified and there should be many more unidentified varieties. Similarly there must be infinite variety of other species in our Earth and these together form a perfect natural protection for the human race. Biodiversity supports human race in different ways.

Few of them are listed below:

1. Some of the species capture and stores energy and releases it back in the atmosphere for human consumption.

2. Some biological species help in decomposing organic materials and thus acts as a natural recycling agent.

3. Plants and trees help in reducing pollution and maintain the purity of atmospheric air.

4. It is from the biological resources that humans receive food and shelter.

5. The astonishing beauty of biodiversity is the base for tourism industry to flourish.

Decline in Biodiversity:

The Earth’s biodiversity is undergoing a severe decline and this is a great threat to the human race. There are several factors that lead to the decline in biological species, the most significant one being the behavior of human beings.

1. Human beings destroy forests to build houses and offices. Through deforestation humans are actually destroying the natural habitat of many plants and animals.

2. All new scientific inventions are causing harm to the environment. We cannot even find some species of birds today because of the increase in noise pollution.

3. Global warming is another reason for the decline in biodiversity. Some species require specific climate to survive and when the climatic conditions change continuously these species either migrate or become extinct. Decline in the number of coral reefs are a perfect example.

Steps to Be Taken:

The Government and different voluntary organizations must act upon immediately to create awareness among people on environmental issues and its consequences. It is also the responsibility of every common man to save mother Earth by maintaining a rich biodiversity .

If proper care is not taken, the biodiversity of Earth may become extinct one day and if it happens then, humans have to find another planet to live. It’s better to act now before it gets too late.

Biodiversity can be said to mean the extreme importance of a very wide variety of animals and plants that are resident on the planet earth or in a particular habitat. It is very necessary to maintain the level of biodiversity on the earth so that the environmental harmony can be balanced. Biological diversity is another name for biodiversity and is widely the variability or diversity of all the different species of animals and plants on this planet. Having a very high biodiversity is extremely essential to help maintain the surroundings in a state of harmony. Biodiversity can be loosely defined as a variety of fauna and flora that are available in a specific habitat or the planet earth. Biodiversity is largely originated from the terms – species diversity and species richness.

Biodiversity is mainly a united view of the biological varieties. A lot of other words and terms have been at one time or another used to explain diversity. Some of these terms include taxonomic diversity (this comes from a species diversity point of view), ecological diversity (this comes from an ecosystem diversity point of view), morphological diversity (this comes from a genetic diversity point of view) and functional diversity (this comes from the point of view of the functions of the species). Biodiversity gives quite a uniform view of the above discussed biological varieties.

Biological diversity is quite important because its helps maintain the ecological balance in a system. Different animals and plants depend on one another to fulfill all of their needs. For example, we human beings depend on various animals and plants for our clothes, shelter and food. Other species also do the same and depend on a variety of other species to sustain them and provide them with the basics. Biodiversity and its beautiful richness ensure that the earth is fit enough for the survival of each and every one of the organism living on the earth. However, the ever increasing pollution is negatively affecting biodiversity. Quite a lot of animals and plants have gone into extinction as a result of this pollution and a lot more are going to become extinct if proper care is not taken and the pollution of the environment continues to exponentially and this would cause a sharp decline in the biodiversity.

We human beings have to understand how important the maintenance of the immensely rich biodiversity is. Smokes from vehicles causes a high rate of air pollution and this causes harm to a lot of species. The level of pollution in the atmosphere has to be put under control. Water bodies like seas, oceans and rivers are polluted by the release of industrial wastes into the. These wastes are very harmful to the marine organism and life in the water bodies. There is therefore a need to try as much as possible to dispose industrial wastes through other means and methods that do not harm the environment. The industrial wastes can be primarily treated before being disposed into the water properly and safely.

When you are a biology student biodiversity is one of the most important words you can learn. Not only that but it also becomes your lives calling to maintain it. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves before we can understand why it is important, we need to understand what it is.

This term refers to the many different life forms that inhabit the earth at this moment, this includes bacteria, plants, animals and humans and it also refers to their shared environment. Life has manifested itself in many different forms we do not know why exactly but we are certain that they all exist and depend on each other for survival.

Why is biodiversity important?

The answer to this question is more important than just simply stating what biodiversity is. My personal experience as a student has thought me that I learn best when I have an example so I will give you an example of the importance of biodiversity.

The famous Yellowstone Park is a natural reserve and national park but before it was declared as such it was just another forest that man wanted to hunt in. The geographical region had many wolfs inhabiting its plains, for generations they were hunted until they became extinct in the region. After a while, the coyotes began to reproduce as they hade more space and they started hunting the small mammals, which lead to a decrease in the population of eagles in the area but the most significant change came because of the deer. After fifty years of no wolfs in the park the number of roe deer rose and since they had no natural predators, they no longer feared open grasslands. That’s when they started grazing extensively which depleted the grass on the shore of the Yellow stone river and this, in turn, made the soil loos. The river began to take away a lot of soil and to deposit it in other places flooding certain areas while at the same time causing droughts to happen in other places.

Biologists came to the park with a wish to restore its wolf population and after a decade of planning and working they restored one pack to the park. The pack soon made the deer go back to the forest so they could be harder to hunt, the coyote’s population dropped because they couldn’t compete with the wolf, that led to the increase of small rodents which let to the return of carnivores’ grate birds. But above all the grazing on the river edge stopped and after a few years, the Yellowstone river returned to its natural flow.

This story is completely true and I love to use it as an example of the importance of maintaining biodiversity. There are many regions in the world that have similar problems and if we do not do our best to conserve biodiversity, we could be looking at similar or even worst natural catastrophes.

People tend to mass produce and they do this with most things. They will destroy a forest of many thousands of life forms to make a plantation with one single plant, the same is true of animal farming. With our need to be productive all the time we lose sight of the small things that make the system function as whole. Even though an insignificant thing as a bug or a wolf pack might seem the least important for our daily lives once we take them out of the picture, we see that the balance and wealth biodiversity gives to the planet is not something that can be easily compensated.

The genetic, species and ecosystem variability of flora and fauna on earth are known as Biodiversity. For painting what exactly is Biodiversity, we need a large canvas beyond imagination. Such is the volume of the subject. But, the actual meaning and terms are still not clear.

Keeping it very simple and to the point, the term ‘Biodiversity’ comprises of two words. The first word is Bio, and the other one is Diversity. Bio means the forms of life and Diversity means mixture or variety. So, when both the words combine they form a definition like this ‘Biodiversity means various and mixed forms of life on earth.’ The variety of life forms on earth includes plants and animals and their natural habitat.

Facts about Biodiversity:

Digging into the term ‘Biodiversity’ more generously makes us realize that we have over 10,000 species of birds on earth. The amazing number blows everyone’s mind. Insects have a different counting, and their species are in millions. Plants are also a part of this biological system, and hence there are more than 20,000 species of plants.

Even after so many species of plants, animals and insects have specified there are still over millions of species which are not known by anyone. These species cannot be counted under any head as they don’t pursue an identity. The actual picture says that earth is home to almost 50 million species or even more than that. These facts do not conclude the point because one or the other day there may be many new species evolving.

Biodiversity is essential for survival. The importance of Biodiversity not only related to plants, animals and natural habitat. But it also provides us so many natural products such as fibre and timber and the fresh water to carry out our daily lives. Therefore we need to understand the importance of Biodiversity.

1.   The natural and organic resources:

In the happiness of living our lives, we often forget that Biodiversity is a part of nature. We should protect it no matter whatever be the limitations. Mother Nature has provided us with enough resources which are the Biological Resources. These include wood, medicines, food, etc., which are direct blessings of Biological System or by-product of the Biological Systems. Herbs and plants play a vital role in producing medicines. They may get their final touch from the pharmaceutical companies, but the original source is plants which are again a part of Biodiversity.

2. Biodiversity provides fibres:

It is important to know that wool, jute, palms, etc., use to produce various types of fibres after processing which are again part of the Biological Systems. So, if biodiversity does not persist how people will have access to these fibres? Flax plants use for the production of linen, which is extensively using for making clothes. Similarly, Corchorus plants and Agave plants are using for the production of Jute and sisal respectively. These fibres are no doubt essential for the cloth industry. Therefore it becomes our duty to maintain the Biodiversity.

3. Powerful benefits of Biodiversity:

People may not be aware of the importance, but there are many spiritual benefits of biodiversity. Our folk dances, mythology, and history have a deep link with the Biodiversity in one or the other way. Everyone enjoys or experience the Biodiversity in a different format. Biological diversity also contributes to attracting tourists, especially flora and fauna, which is a rare phenomenon in cities. Therefore it is our ethical duty to preserve Biodiversity.

Preserve Biodiversity:

There are different ways in which we can preserve our Biological environment. Biodiversity should be protected by following these ways.

i. People should stop the process of hunting and poaching the animals. They are a part of Biodiversity.

ii. Protection of endangered species and their surroundings.

iii. We need to curb pollution for protecting Biodiversity.

iv. The explosive growth of population is a threat to Biodiversity. So, to maintain the biological balance, we need to have the population growth under control. Otherwise, people will be exploiting natural resources unethically for survival.

All steps must be taken to protect biodiversity. Things may seem difficult in the initial stages but practicing them will lead to genuine results. Creating awareness on environmental issues and the negative impact of the loss of biodiversity will let people understand the inevitable need for biodiversity conservation.

It is our responsibility to protect the endangered species of plant and animals. If one wants to reach their destination, then it is imperative to take the first step. Without taking a step forward, things will never change on their own. To make a better tomorrow, we need to take steps for preserving our very own Biodiversity.

Biodiversity is a term used to refer the different forms of life on the Earth. It also includes the variety of species in the ecosystem. There is an uneven distribution of the biodiversity on the Earth due to the extreme variation of temperatures in different regions. For instance, it is more in regions near the equator due to warm climatic conditions. However, near the pole, the extreme cold and unfavourable weather conditions do not support a majority of life forms. Additionally, changes in climatic conditions on the Earth over a period of time have also led to the extinction of a number of species.

Biodiversity is often defined at different levels depending upon the category of species. For example, taxonomic diversity is used to measure the species diversity level of different forms of life on the Earth. Ecological diversity is a broader term used for the ecosystem diversity. Similarly, functional diversity is a type used to measure diversity based on their feeding mechanisms along with other functions of species within a population.

Distribution:

There is an uneven distribution of biodiversity on the Earth. In fact, it increases from pole to equator. The climatic conditions of a region decide the presence of different species in an area. Not all species can survive in all weather conditions. Moreover, lower altitudes have a high concentration of species as compared to higher altitudes.

The importance of biodiversity does not only lie in the survival of various species of the earth. There is social, cultural as well as the economic importance of it as well. Biodiversity is of extreme importance to maintain the balance of nature. It is vital to maintaining the food chain as well. One species may be the food for another species and various species are linked to each other through this food chain. Apart from this, there is scientific importance of the biodiversity as well. The research and breeding programmes involve the variety of species. If these species cease to exist then such programmes shall not be possible.

Also, most of the drugs and medicine which are vital for the cure of many diseases are also made from many plants and animals. For instance, penicillin is a fungus through which the penicillin antibiotic is extracted.

Another important importance of biodiversity is that it provides food to all including human beings. All the food we consume is either derived from plants or animals such as fishes and other marine animals. They are also the source of new crops, pesticides and source material for agricultural practices.

Biodiversity is also important for industrial use. We get many products such as fur, honey, leather and pearls from animals. Moreover, we get timber for plants which are the basis of the paper we use in our everyday life. Tea, coffee and other drinks along with dry fruits and our regular fruits and vegetables, all are obtained from the various plants.

There is cultural and religious importance of many species as well. Many plants and animals are worshipped in different cultures and religions such as Ocitnum sanctum (Tulsi) which is a plant worshipped by Hindus.

Biodiversity in India:

India ranks among the top 12 nations which have a rich heritage of biodiversity. There are about 350 different species of mammals along with 12000 different species of birds which are found in India. Additionally, there are around 50000 species of insects which have their habitat in our country. There are a wide variety of domestic animals such as cows and buffaloes along with marine life which is found in India. Moreover, India is a land of 10 different biographical regions which include islands, Trans Himalayas, Desert, Western Ghats, Gangetic Plain, Semi-arid zone, Northeastern zone, Deccan Plateau, Coastal islands and the Western Ghats.

The Gradual Decrease:

Not all species which existed in the ancient times exist today as well. For example, dinosaurs used to exist on our planet in older times. But they were not able to adapt to the changing environmental conditions which led to their extinction from the Earth. Similarly, there are many other species which are on the verge of extinction due to the urbanisation and modernisation of the world. With the increase in population, there has been a constant need to reduce the forest areas and make way for new cities. This has led to the reduction in forests which are the natural habitat for many wild animals and plants. Due to this many wild plants have become extinct and there has been an increase in the man-animal conflict as well. Hence there has been a need to conserve the biodiversity so as to maintain the balance of nature.

Initiatives for the Conservation of Biodiversity:

There have been initiatives by the governments all over the world to conserve the existing biodiversity on the earth. For example, there are dedicated national parks which earmark the area for wild animals and plants and reduce human intervention in their lives. There are various wildlife conservation programmes in place to protect the vulnerable and endangered species. For example, Project Tiger is one such measure in place to increase the population of tigers in our country.

There are also many laws in place which make the hunting of endangered and vulnerable animals a punishable offence. At the international level, UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) and IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources) have also initiated many programmes in order to preserve various species.

It is not possible for the human to live all alone on the Earth. Various other life forms are equally important and play their roles in the mutual survival of the various species on the Earth. Each one of species has its own set of contribution for the environment. Already many species have become extinct as they were not able to survive in the changing weather conditions. Hence it is our duty to ensure that our activities do not affect the other flora and fauna on the planet. Although there are a number of steps taken by the government so as to preserve the various life forms, we should also contribute individually towards this cause. If we do not act today, we may yet again witness the extinction of the vulnerable biodiversity which may further disturb the balance of nature.

Biodiversity , Ecosystem , Environment

Get FREE Work-at-Home Job Leads Delivered Weekly!

Join more than 50,000 subscribers receiving regular updates! Plus, get a FREE copy of How to Make Money Blogging!

Message from Sophia!

Like this post? Don’t forget to share it!

Here are a few recommended articles for you to read next:

• Essay on Noise Pollution
• Essay on Deforestation
• Essay on Environmental Pollution
• Essay on Acid Rain

No comments yet.

Leave a reply click here to cancel reply..

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Billionaires

• Donald Trump
• Warren Buffett
• Email Address
• Free Stock Photos
• Keyword Research Tools
• URL Shortener Tools
• WordPress Theme

Book Summaries

• How To Win Friends
• Rich Dad Poor Dad
• The Code of the Extraordinary Mind
• The Luck Factor
• The Millionaire Fastlane
• The ONE Thing
• Think and Grow Rich
• 100 Million Dollar Business
• Business Ideas

Digital Marketing

• Mobile Addiction
• Social Media Addiction
• Computer Addiction
• Drug Addiction
• Internet Addiction
• TV Addiction
• Healthy Habits
• Morning Rituals
• Wake up Early
• Cholesterol
• Reducing Cholesterol
• Fat Loss Diet Plan
• Reducing Hair Fall
• Sleep Apnea
• Weight Loss

Internet Marketing

• Email Marketing

Law of Attraction

• Subconscious Mind
• Vision Board
• Visualization

Law of Vibration

• Professional Life

Motivational Speakers

• Bob Proctor
• Robert Kiyosaki
• Vivek Bindra
• Inner Peace

Productivity

• Not To-do List
• Project Management Software
• Negative Energies

Relationship

• Getting Back Your Ex

Self-help 21 and 14 Days Course

Self-improvement.

• Body Language
• Complainers
• Emotional Intelligence
• Personality

Social Media

• Project Management
• Anik Singal
• Baba Ramdev
• Dwayne Johnson
• Jackie Chan
• Leonardo DiCaprio
• Narendra Modi
• Nikola Tesla
• Sachin Tendulkar
• Sandeep Maheshwari
• Shaqir Hussyin

Website Development

Wisdom post, worlds most.

• Expensive Cars

Our Portals: Gulf Canada USA Italy Gulf UK

Privacy Overview

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

• View all journals
• Explore content
• About the journal
• Publish with us
• Sign up for alerts
• News & Views
• Published: 06 August 2024

Biogeography

Unmasking Antarctica’s biodiversity

• Nicolas Lecomte   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-8473-5375 1  

Nature Geoscience volume  17 ,  pages 714–715 ( 2024 ) Cite this article

187 Accesses

1 Altmetric

Metrics details

• Biodiversity
• Environmental sciences

Tracking biodiversity potential is time-sensitive under climate change, especially in the most remote areas. A new analysis fulfils a long-standing need to map the terrestrial vegetation across Antarctica — a crucial step to identify carbon and nutrient cycling hotspots.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Access Nature and 54 other Nature Portfolio journals

Get Nature+, our best-value online-access subscription

24,99 € / 30 days

cancel any time

Subscribe to this journal

Receive 12 print issues and online access

251,40 € per year

only 20,95 € per issue

Buy this article

• Purchase on Springer Link
• Instant access to full article PDF

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Nicolas Lecomte (2021)

The protocol on environmental protection to the Antarctic Treaty. Secretariat of the Antarctic Treaty https://www.ats.aq/e/protocol.html (2024).

Wauchope, H. S., Shaw, J. D. & Terauds, A. Nat. Commun. 10 , 946 (2019).

Article   Google Scholar  

Lee, J. R. et al. Nature 547 , 49–54 (2017).

Article   CAS   Google Scholar  

Terauds, A. et al. Divers. Distrib. 18 , 726–741 (2012).

Walshaw, C. V. et al. Nat. Geosci. https://doi.org/10.1038/41561-024-01492-4 (2024).

Cavender-Bares, J. et al. Nat. Ecol. Evol. 6 , 506–519 (2022).

Chown, S. L. et al. Science 337 , 158–159 (2012).

LaRue, M. et al. Proc. R. Soc. B 291 , 20232067 (2024).

Varliero, G. et al. Microbiome 12 , 9 (2024).

Abrego, N. et al. Nature https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-024-07658-9 (2024).

Leihy, R. I., Peake, L., Clarke, D. A., Chown, S. L. & McGeoch, M. A. Sci. Data 10 , 200 (2023).

Lecomte, N. Nature 620 , 499–500 (2023).

Download references

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

Department of Biology, University of Moncton, Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada

Nicolas Lecomte

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Nicolas Lecomte .

Ethics declarations

Competing interests.

The author declares no competing interests.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article.

Lecomte, N. Unmasking Antarctica’s biodiversity. Nat. Geosci. 17 , 714–715 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-024-01502-5

Download citation

Published : 06 August 2024

Issue Date : August 2024

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-024-01502-5

Share this article

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

Quick links

• Explore articles by subject
• Guide to authors
• Editorial policies

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Data, analysis, convening and action.

The world’s largest and most diverse environmental network.

• IUCN WORLD CONSERVATION CONGRESS
• REGIONAL CONSERVATION FORA
• CONTRIBUTIONS FOR NATURE
• IUCN ENGAGE (LOGIN REQUIRED)

IUCN tools, publications and other resources.

• News & Events
• Eastern and Southern Africa
• Eastern Europe and Central Asia
• Mediterranean
• Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean
• North America
• South America
• West and Central Africa
• IUCN Academy
• IUCN Contributions for Nature
• IUCN Library
• IUCN Red List of Threatened Species TM
• IUCN Green List of Protected and Conserved Areas
• IUCN World Heritage Outlook
• IUCN Leaders Forum
• Protected Planet
• Union Portal (login required)
• IUCN Engage (login required)
• Commission portal (login required)

Get Involved

Our resources share the knowledge gathered by IUCN’s unique global community of 16,000+ experts. They include databases, tools, standards, guidelines and policy recommendations. We author hundreds of books, assessments, reports, briefs and research papers every year.

IUCN Issues Briefs provide key information on selected issues central to IUCN’s work. They are aimed at policy-makers, journalists or anyone looking for an accessible overview of the often complex issues related to nature conservation and sustainable development.

Conservation tools

IUCN's conservation tools consist of conservation databases, metrics and other knowledge products. These products have helped hundreds of organisations design, monitor and implement just and effective conservation.

IUCN produces publications on a wide range of topics to share our expertise on nature, conservation and sustainable development. Publications include reports, analyses, best practices, standards, periodicals from IUCN Commissions and numerous other types of knowledge from the Union.

Search all resources

• Sunday 28 July 28 2024, 11:00 – 16:30 (TBC)
• Courtyard Marriot (Frangipani Room)

• DOI: 10.1093/biosci/biae065
• Corpus ID: 271817904

Understanding and achieving species elements in the Kunming–Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework

• Philip J. K. McGowan , Alison Hutchinson , +6 authors S. Butchart
• Published in BioScience 8 August 2024
• Environmental Science

49 References

Species conservation in the post-2020 global biodiversity framework, a biodiversity target based on species extinctions, quantifying and mapping species threat abatement opportunities to support national target setting, set ambitious goals for biodiversity and sustainability, a metric for spatially explicit contributions to science-based species targets, subnational assessment of threats to indian biodiversity and habitat restoration opportunities, bending the curve: operationalizing national red lists to customize conservation actions to reduce extinction risk, global biodiversity: indicators of recent declines, scientific foundations for an ecosystem goal, milestones and indicators for the post-2020 global biodiversity framework, the biodiversity of species and their rates of extinction, distribution, and protection, related papers.

Showing 1 through 3 of 0 Related Papers

• Latest News
• Emergencies
• Environment
• Ask the Law
• Visa+Immigration
• Phone+Internet
• Reader Queries
• Safety+Security
• Banking & Insurance
• Corporate Tax
• Travel & Tourism
• Corporate News
• Electronics
• Home and Kitchen
• Consumables
• Saving and Investment
• Budget Living
• Expert Columns
• Community Tips
• Cryptocurrency
• Cooking and Cuisines
• Guide to Cooking
• Art & People
• Friday Partner
• Daily Crossword
• Word Search
• Philippines
• Australia-New Zealand
• Corrections
• Special Reports
• Pregnancy & Baby
• Learning & Play
• Child Health
• For Mums & Dads
• UAE Success Stories
• Photos & Videos
• Course Reviews
• Learn to Play
• Schedule | Medal Tally
• South Indian
• Health+Fitness
• Best Of Bollywood
• Entertainment
• Special Features
• Gratuity Calculator
• Notifications
• Prayer Times

Biodiversity conservation requires multifaceted approach

Opinion columnists.

To preserve our planet Unesco urges enhanced cooperation at regional, subregional levels

Biodiversity, an amalgamation of ecosystems, species, and genetic diversity within the genres, is vital to life on Earth. Its conservation is essential to maintain nature’s equilibrium and ensure the survival of species and the well-being of humans.

Biodiversity stabilises the environment, enabling it to withstand environmental changes and recover from natural disasters. The diverse ecosystems offer features including pollination of crops, purification of air and water, and waste decomposition.

However, the hazards — pollution degrading habitats that harm wildlife and over-exploitation through hunting, fishing, and trade, drive the species to extinction. Additionally, deforestation and urbanisation lead to climate change, alter habitats, and disrupt the biological cycles.

Therefore, conserving biodiversity should be a pledge of the governments, organisations, communities, and individuals to safeguard the rich tapestry of life for future generations.

Frontline Action

Unesco works to conserve biodiversity and sustainability of its components through designated sites, including biosphere reserves, world heritage sites, and global geoparks. In 2018, these sites protected over 10 million km.

According to the agency, biodiversity is lost at up to 1,000 times the natural rate. Despite an increase in the number of protected areas, it is declining. Therefore, these area networks must be realigned to account for climate change. Unesco stresses efforts to include social and economic systems, well-connected to ecosystem services, and the need for regional and subregional cooperation.

Read more by Abdullah Belhaif Al Nuaimi

• Electric Vehicles: The future of four wheelers
• Emission Crisis: Transportation’s global environmental impact
• A sustainable future: Our responsibility and commitment

Some crucial factors to tackle include:

Extinction of species

The number of species is due to a balance of ongoing evolutionary processes — speciation and extinction. While speciation occurs when new varieties evolve, extinction is their global loss. The high rates of species extinction driven by human activities are causing rapid decline.

The 2019 United Nations report stated that one million species were at risk of extinction. Considering an estimated 8-11 million species, about 12.5 per cent could soon become extinct. These extinctions are irreversible and a serious threat to human health and well-being.

The ratio correlates with habitat loss based on the diminishing forest area. With 90 per cent environmental damage, 50 per cent of species could go extinct, mostly in tropical rainforests, considered the most diverse biosphere being rapidly destroyed by deforestation.

Biodiversity loss

Assessing it involves classifying species based on the quantum of risk — critically endangered, endangered, vulnerable, and near threatened.

The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) gathered information on plants, animals, fungi, and brown algae species. It listed the Emperor Penguin as a near-threatened species due to habitat loss and climate change, and the African elephant as vulnerable to poaching.

Similarly, the blue whale is endangered due to pollution, climate change, and poaching, and the pitcher plant species, which trap insects, are labelled critically endangered due to habitat loss and over-exploitation.

About 26 per cent of mammal varieties worldwide and 14 per cent of the 10,721 identified bird species are threatened. The demise of reef-building corals magnified ecological impacts, as much of the marine life depends on them.

Habitat Destruction

It means altering the environment, wherein certain species cannot survive. While human beings can modify the setting to make it habitable, other species die because their habitat including forests, coral reefs, grasslands, and rivers are eliminated.

People must be aware that home furnishings for which trees are illegally felled contribute to habitat loss and species extinction. It upsets important ecosystems like rivers and streams by altering their flow, affecting the population.

Over-exploitation

Poaching, unsustainable hunting for bushmeat, overfishing, and misusing slow-growing plants and fungi means over-exploitation of organisms faster than they can be replenished.

While elephants are poached for ivory, and rhinos for horns that are used in traditional medicines, the terrestrial animals are killed for food or requirements such as garments and jewellery. There are also concerns about turtles, amphibians, and birds.

Likewise, aquatic species, including whales, are vulnerable to over-fishing, resulting in a radical restructuring of the marine ecosystem, the outcome of which could be the loss of aquatic systems as food sources.

It contributes to the decline of threatened species. Power plants, factories, and vehicles are common sources of air pollution. While the pollutants are directly toxic, they indirectly cause ecological harm due to carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions that lead to climate change.

The air pollutants cause respiratory issues in animals and damage vegetation. Some interact with the atmosphere resulting in acid deposition, which dislocates aquatic ecosystems, soil, and plants. Heavy metals, plastics, pesticides, herbicides, fertilisers, and sediments are examples of water pollution.

Invasive species

Introduced by humans into an ecosystem in which they did not evolve, invasive species cause ecological and economic harm, and destruction. When introduced to an area out of their native range, the non-native organisms disrupt the community.

Transportation of people and goods, including organisms for trade, has increased the introduction of species into new ecosystems. At times, these are at distances outside the range of their natural predators. They threaten other species through competition for resources, predation, or disease. Islands and lakes are particularly vulnerable to extinction threats from introduced species.

Climate change

Caused by greenhouse gases like CO2 and methane and the use of fossil fuels, climate change increases the average global temperature and results in unpredictable weather patterns. It threatens biodiversity through various mechanisms, causing species range shifts, mismatched biotic interactions, rising sea levels, and ocean acidification.

Reports indicate that 15 per cent to 40 per cent of species could become extinct by 2050, as climate change makes habitats less hospitable to insects, freshwater fishes, reptiles, amphibians, mammals, and plants.

Leading by example

Environmental activist, David Suzuki said, “If we pollute the air, water, and soil that keep us alive and well, and destroy the biodiversity that allows natural systems to function, no amount of money will save us.”

Thus, setting benchmarks for nations to follow, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), known for taking environmental issues seriously, has made massive efforts to reintroduce the critically endangered species. It has protected and conserves habitats that are part of the region’s rich biodiversity. Animals revered once and going extinct because of hunting, have made a comeback. These include the Arabian oryx and sand gazelle.

The UAE has deduced that effective biodiversity conservation requires a multifaceted approach, including:

• Establishing protected areas like national parks and wildlife reserves for habitats and species.

• Promoting sustainable agriculture, forestry, and fishing practices and restoring degraded ecosystems.

• Enforcing laws and policies to protect endangered species.

• Engaging local communities in conservation efforts.

• Raising awareness on the importance of biodiversity and the threats it faces.

Dr Abdullah Belhaif Al Nuaimi is Chairman of the Advisory Council of the Emirate of Sharjah.

More From Op-Eds

Sisodia’s release and Kejriwal’s jail woes expose AAP

Harris, Walz can rewrite America’s political playbook

A historic Olympics of triumph and global icons

Heatwaves are reminders of accelerating climate crisis

Pakistan nationals celebrate Independence Day

India: Yogi Adityanath and BJP’s internal conflict

Middle East: Real calculations of Tehran and Tel Aviv

Phogat’s appeal for joint silver medal dismissed by cas, stonehenge mystery deepens as altar traced to scotland, nris: saving for retirement overseas know these taxes, india appoint morne morkel as new bowling coach, fearing iran attack, israeli museum hides top artworks.

Get Breaking News Alerts From Gulf News

We’ll send you latest news updates through the day. You can manage them any time by clicking on the notification icon.

We've detected unusual activity from your computer network

To continue, please click the box below to let us know you're not a robot.

Why did this happen?

Please make sure your browser supports JavaScript and cookies and that you are not blocking them from loading. For more information you can review our Terms of Service and Cookie Policy .

For inquiries related to this message please contact our support team and provide the reference ID below.