Biodiversity faces a difficult future in light of climate change
Biodiversity faces a difficult future in light of climate change
The term “Biodiversity” can be described as all the different types of life that you will find around you, and includes a diverse group of animals, plants, fungi, and even microorganisms such as bacteria that make up our natural world. Where each of these species and organisms works together in ecosystems; To maintain balance and support life.
Biodiversity is absolutely essential to the processes that support all life on Earth, including humans. Without a wide variety of animals, plants and microorganisms, we would not have the healthy ecosystems we depend on to provide us with the air we breathe and the food we eat. We eat it, but unfortunately, the future vision for biodiversity on planet Earth looks very bleak.
The need for an international agreement and framework
Pollution, habitat loss and climate change are among the countless stressors that now threaten tens of thousands of species across the planet, among more than “150,000 species” assessed by the issued “Red List of Threatened Species” According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), more than a quarter of these species are threatened with extinction, says Craig Hilton Taylor, who heads the Red List Unit of the International Union for Conservation of Nature, which means that things are getting worse.
This news comes at a time when crucial international negotiations are taking place at the COP15 Biodiversity Conference in Montreal to formulate a global agreement. It aims to protect biodiversity, similar to the Paris Climate Agreement, which set goals to reduce and limit greenhouse gas emissions. The climate emergency usually overshadows the plight of various species that are rapidly disappearing on Earth, but these crises are two sides of the same coin, and addressing one helps alleviate the other.
The Red List includes a network of thousands of researchers around the world who evaluate the risks facing each species. These data are then combined into a classification of the degree of danger to which each species is exposed, and the classification degrees range from “the least amount of “concerned” to “severely endangered”, to give a realistic picture of those species that still exist in the wild. Moreover, there are classifications that count species that are already extinct.
Although the list does not carry any legal weight, it can serve as the first call to take action to preserve the environment. This gives governments and environmental conservation associations the important information necessary to formulate biodiversity conservation plans.
Between recovery and deterioration for some species
We take, for example, “abalone,” a marine mollusk that is widely considered a seafood delicacy in many countries around the world. However, approximately 40 percent of the 54 species of abalone in the world are threatened. Now extinct; This is mainly due to overfishing and unsustainable breeding of its species, and pollution, diseases and marine heat waves exacerbated by climate change have exacerbated the plight of this species.
IUCNHe also highlighted the columnar coral formations found throughout the Caribbean, which have declined by more than 80 percent across most regions since 1990, moving their classification from “species “Vulnerable” to “extremely endangered.” Also of concern is the emergence of coral tissue loss disease, which is highly contagious and has appeared in the past four years and is greatly affecting this species.
Rising ocean temperatures and pollution can make coral reefs more vulnerable to such diseases, and vertical coral reefs are actually the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the plight of coral reefs.
There was some glimmer of hope in the information issued by the Red List, which saw seven species in good condition. For example, we find that the “Yosemite frog” moved from the classification of “endangered” to “vulnerable,” thanks to a comprehensive conservation plan that included many agencies. government, in addition to local residents.
Similarly, the involvement of local communities was a key factor in the production of the “Australian weaver”, which is a type of bird that has moved from the classification of “endangered” to “vulnerable species”. The bird thrives in wetlands, and conservationists in Australia are working with local rice farmers to make Their fields are friendly to this species.
Biodiversity between reality and hopes
Taylor adds: “These successes in preserving and increasing some species show that well-crafted conservation plans that include local communities and have sufficient resources can make a difference in reducing the loss of species. “We all hope that the Convention on Biological Diversity being negotiated in December 2022 during COP15 in Montreal will help make these efforts possible on a much larger scale. We really need a global plan to protect life on Earth, and it must have ambitious, bold and measurable goals.”
One of these goals being considered in the current Montreal negotiations is to protect 30 percent of the planet’s lands and oceans by 2030. In a statement issued by the non-profit Wildlife Conservation Society, the association’s vice president of international policy said: “It is in order to conduct negotiations To succeed, governments must commit to: maintain and protect environmental integrity and highly intact ecosystems (from forests to coral reefs) and well-maintained at least 30% of land and oceans by 2030, and eliminate the exploitation, trade and use of wildlife that is illegal, unsustainable or poses a risk of spreading Pathogens in humans, wildlife, or other animals.”
