Biodiversity, the variety of life on Earth, provides us with services essential for human well-being such as clothing, food and medicines. But we are losing it at an alarming rate. A million plant and animal species are threatened with extinction, we have lost half of the world’s corals and lose forest areas the size of 27 football fields every minute.
Coral reef systems are an indicator for healthy oceans, but we have already lost around 50% of warm-water coral reefs. If we do not limit global warming to well below 2°C we could lose the vast majority of coral systems.
Forests stabilise our climate and without them global temperatures would be 0.5°C warmer. But every year we lose forests about the size of Portugal. Deforestation causes carbon emissions, increases droughts and leads to warmer, drier local climates. It also puts the food security and livelihood of millions of people at risk.
We all need to eat, but the intensive and unsustainable way we currently produce food sees us degrade and destroy precious environments that are critical for people and nature. Food production has caused 70% of biodiversity loss on land and 50% in fresh water. It is also responsible for around 30% of all greenhouse gas emissions.
Biodiversity is essential for our health, well-being and economic success. It is essential to understand why nature is in decline in order to alter this path. Five key drivers of biodiversity loss have been identified by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). They are changes in the use of sea and land, direct exploitation of organisms, climate change, pollution and invasive non-native species.