Biodiversity

How important is Biodiversity?

There many issues of importance in your understanding of this life. Many appear at the time to be earth shaking, be it the destructions of war, the realities of love, the cares and concerns of parenting children into adulthood, identifying and protecting human rights, or, to some, the garnering of personal wealth in a system of values.

But nothing is more important than that systemic web which sustains our lives. Nothing demands your understanding more than this... that which we call Biodiversity

The vast diversity of all living things on the planet, meaning all variations, and the very complex assemblies of their communities and ecosystems defines our biodiversity. It includes everything involved in the interrelatedness of life. Biodiversity is the fabric web of our world and in many instances, it is the reason we can exist. Without enough biodiversity, life begins to perish, often in ways hard to perceive. This is already happening and that is why it is so important to learn more, to promote the understanding of how we can protect biodiversity. The dynamics interactions of different species within our life sphere are still being discovered, along with incredible medical benefits that are being derived from both plants and animals.

Species are disappearing at rates never before witnessed on earth. Possibly 50 million species now inhabit the earth, but only about 1.5 million species have been identified. Over the past 25 years, we have extinguished one-quarter of all known life on this planet and it is said that another one-third may be extinct by 2025. One species an hour is forced into extinction and the rate appears to be increasing. A report by John Hopkins University shows that the rate today at which species are becoming extinct, is between 100 to 1000 times more rapid than it was prior to the existence of humankind and most of this increase is due to human activity.

The loss of biodiversity to corporate interests is well illustrated in a report on Canadian complicity with the corporations wanting to mine, log, and pursue domination over the natural wilds. Greenwashing by even avowed environmental groups has lead to mass public misinformation... with the total exclusion of First Nations people in the process of their "democracy"! Click here to read about the Greenwashing and marginalizing of Canada's biodiversity for the sake of corporate bottom lines!

The following article is an excellent overview of current trends. Below that is a link to a large list of articles compiled by Professor David Ulansey, where if you just read the titles, you'll begin to realize the graveness of the challenges facing all of us! It is highly important that each and everyone of us realizes the vast impact we are having on the planet and put out the effort to become involved in the realities of working toward our future!

Mass Extinction Underway, Majority of Biologists Say

Washington Post
Tuesday, April 21, 1998
Page A-4

By Joby Warrick
Staff Writer

A majority of the nation's biologists are convinced that a "mass extinction" of plants and animals is underway that poses a major threat to humans in the next century, yet most Americans are only dimly aware of the problem, a poll says.

The rapid disappearance of species was ranked as one of the planet's gravest environmental worries, surpassing pollution, global warming and the thinning of the ozone layer, according to the survey of 400 scientists commissioned by New York's American Museum of Natural History.

The poll's release yesterday comes on the heels of a groundbreaking study of plant diversity that concluded than at least one in eight known plant species is threatened with extinction. Although scientists are divided over the specific numbers, many believe that the rate of loss is greater now than at any time in history.

"The speed at which species are being lost is much faster than any we've seen in the past -- including those [extinctions] related to meteor collisions," said Daniel Simberloff, a University of Tennessee ecologist and prominent expert in biological diversity who participated in the museum's survey. [Note: the last mass extinction caused by a meteor collision was that of the dinosaurs, 65 million years ago.]

Most of his peers apparently agree. Nearly seven out of 10 of the biologists polled said they believed a "mass extinction" was underway, and an equal number predicted that up to one-fifth of all living species could disappear within 30 years. Nearly all attributed the losses to human activity, especially the destruction of plant and animal habitats.

Among the dissenters, some argue that there is not yet enough data to support the view that a mass extinction is occurring. Many of the estimates of spiecies loss are extrapolations based on the global destruction of rain forests and other rich habitats.

Among non-scientists, meanwhile, the subject appears to have made relatively little impression. Sixty percent of the laymen polled professed little or no familiarity with the concept of biological diversity, and barely half ranked species loss as a "major threat."

The scientists interviewed in the Louis Harris poll were members of the Washington-based American Institute of Biological Sciences, a professional society of more than 5,000 scientists.

Many sources of information expand on extinction issues. An excellent compilation of articles is available from David Ulansey by clicking here.

We feel, as Professor Ulansey states, that everyone needs to communicate the issues, educate themselves... and become involved in some sort of group networking as the way that will lead to a positive future for all of us.

This is what Planet Agenda is all about and we hope you will join us to further our endeavors to inform and educate the general public.

For more information on joining Planet Agenda's efforts, please click here.

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