Over the past few decades, global biological diversity has suffered from a crisis, and while the world celebrates the International Day of Biodiversity on May 22 under the slogan “harmony with nature and sustainable development”, warnings are highlighted by the loss of many environmental systems that exacerbated the risks on the planet.
The United Nations indicates that the current negative trends related to biological diversity and environmental systems are undermined the progress made in about 80% of the goals that were evaluated within 8 of the sustainable development goals.
The organization’s reports confirm that three quarters of the ground environmental systems and about 66% of marine systems are bound by grave change due to human activity, and that approximately one million species of animals and plants face the risk of extinction.
The Live Planet Report issued by the World Wildlife Fund shows that the numbers of wild animals have declined at a rate of 69% since 1970, especially in the tropics.
The World Wildlife Fund has included more than 150,000 species on the red list of endangered species, of which more than 42,000 are at risk of extinction in the wilderness.
A report by the Food and Agriculture Organization also confirms that approximately a third of fish stocks are exposed to unjust fishing, and that a third of fish in fresh water that was evaluated is threatened with extinction. This also includes 26% of livestock breeds.
Vital
Biological diversity is often understood as a diversity in plant and animal organisms and microorganisms, from plankton to coral reefs, but it also includes genetic differences within each type, as is the case between crop varieties and livestock strains, in addition to the diversity of environmental systems from lakes, forests, deserts and agricultural lands, where lifestyles interact and interact between humans, plants and animals.
Climate change greatly affects biological diversity, but human activities deepening population growth, tyranny of consumerism and competition for resources at the expense of nature, population growth, exacerbated environmental systems, which caused the deterioration of its rich biological diversity and its precise balance, which in turn limited its ability to provide vital services for humanity.
Each part of the ecosystem depends on others such as the game installation game, and more than half of the global gross domestic product depends, moderately or largely, on the nature, services and diversity. From forests to oceans, biological diversity is the basis of human existence and its continuity.
Our nutritional systems also depend on the richness of nature. More than 75% of global food crops depend on pollinations, which contributes hundreds of billions to agricultural production annually, and the change in the temperature of the ecosystem will have severe effects on other things, such as plants and animals that can grow and live there.
Risks and challenges
The biological diversity suffers from several main risks, governed by human activities, including extracting fossil fuels, using it, and climatic changes also caused by greenhouse gases launched in the atmosphere and led to global warming, and among the most prominent of these risks:
- High temperature of the Earth, rainfall patterns, sea level rise, desertification and dehydration.
- Excessive exploitation of nature resources, destruction of habitats and forest pieces that include a unique and intertwined environmental diversity.
- Environmental pollution, including chemical pollution, plastic spread and noise pollution.
- Overfishing and illegal trade in species.
- Invasive species due to climatic changes or human activities that eliminate the original species.
Although climate change exacerbates environmental deterioration and eliminates species. Biological diversity is necessary to reduce climate change. When human activities produce greenhouse gases, about half of the emissions remain in the atmosphere, while the Earth and oceans absorb the other half, and these ecosystems and biological diversity become a natural sink of carbon that provide the so -called nature -based solutions to climate change.
In the context of reducing the deterioration in species and preserving biological diversity, the United Nations developed in December 2022, a global plan to reformulate the relationship of humans with nature, adopting the “Kunming -Montreal World Biodiversity” framework that set 23 goals for 2030 and 5 global goals for 2050 in order to stop environmental deterioration and reflect its course in 25 years.
Among these goals that must be achieved within the framework of global work, the restoration of 20% of the deteriorating ecosystems, and the reduction of the entry or stability of the invasive strange species by 50%. Despite the anxiety factors of the deterioration of biological diversity, positive points are high, including joint international work and the wide exploitation of technology to detect and avoid harm.