ElephanaticsWhat is Biodiversity?
Biodiversity is the variability of living organisms from all sources, including terrestrial, marine, and other aquatic habitats, and the ecological complexes to which they belong; this involves a variety of species, and ecosystems. Biodiversity is the most complex feature of our planet and it is the most vital. Without biodiversity, there is no future for humanity. Biodiversity is the foundation of our economy, livelihoods, food security, health and quality of life worldwide.
Biodiversity Loss
The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) recent report identified significant areas of biodiversity loss across all eco-systems:
- Three-quarters of the land-based environment and about 66% of the marine environment have been significantly altered by human actions. On average these trends have been less severe or avoided in areas held or managed by Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities.
- More than a third of the world’s land surface and nearly 75% of freshwater resources are now devoted to crop or livestock production.
- The value of agricultural crop production has increased by about 300% since 1970, raw timber harvest has risen by 45% and approximately 60 billion tons of renewable and nonrenewable resources are now extracted globally every year – having nearly doubled since 1980.
- Land degradation has reduced the productivity of 23% of the global land surface, up to US$577 billion in annual global crops are at risk from pollinator loss and 100-300 million people are at increased risk of floods and hurricanes because of loss of coastal habitats and protection.
- In 2015, 33% of marine fish stocks were being harvested at unsustainable levels; 60% were maximally sustainably fished, with just 7% harvested at levels lower than what can be sustainably fished.
- Urban areas have more than doubled since 1992.
- Plastic pollution has increased tenfold since 1980, 300-400 million tons of heavy metals, solvents, toxic sludge and other wastes from industrial facilities are dumped annually into the world’s waters, and fertilizers entering coastal ecosystems have produced more than 400 ocean ‘dead zones’, totalling more than 245,000 km2 (591-595) – a combined area greater than that of the United Kingdom.
Negative trends in nature will continue to 2050 and beyond in all of the policy scenarios explored in the Report, except those that include transformative change – due to the projected impacts of increasing land-use change, exploitation of organisms and climate change, although with significant differences between regions.
- Within the past century the African elephant population has decreased by 96 percent, from 10 million in 1930 to a few hundred thousand today.
- In the last forty years, elephant habitat has decreased by nearly two thirds largely due to human activities.
- Without urgent intervention conservationists predict elephants will be extinct in the wild within 20 years.
- IUCN has updated its red list of threatened species to include the African elephant. It is now split into two different categories with the Savanah elephant classified as endangered and the forest elephant classified as critically endangered. It highlights a broadscale decline in African elephant numbers across the continent. The number of African forest elephants fell by more than 86% over a period of 31 years, while the population of African savanna elephants decreased by at least 60% over the last 50 years, according to the assessments.
Further loss to Biodiversity
- trophy hunting
- legal hunting
- wildlife trafficking and live animal markets
- Traditional Chinese Medicine
- Poaching
- Human animal conflict
- Infrastructure building of mines and oil technology in Botswana, Uganda, Namibia, Tanzania Sierra Leone
Economic Value – What is Nature’s $10 Trillion dollar wake-up call to global economy?
How much is an elephant worth? Meet the ecologists doing the sums
The value of biodiversity is not the same as its price
What is IPBES?
The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) is an independent intergovernmental body established by States to strengthen the science-policy interface for biodiversity and ecosystem services for the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity, long-term human well-being and sustainable development. It was established in Panama City, on 21 April 2012 by 94 Governments. It is not a United Nations body. However, at the request of the IPBES Plenary and with the authorization of the UNEP Governing Council in 2013, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) provides secretariat services to IPBES. See here for more information on the history of IPBES.
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The value of elephants: A pluralist approachAntoinette van de Water, Michelle Henley, Lucy Bates & Rob Slotow Science DirectDecember 2022AbstractBiodiversity conservation strategies may prioritize certain values of nature over others. Whilst there will likely always be a need for compromise in conservation planning, the consequences of trade-offs depend on peoples’ relative perceptions of values that are promoted or neglected. In practice, not fully understanding or taking into account the value systems of all stakeholders, including local people, leads to contention, social inequality, and ineffectiveness. Elephants provide an excellent case study to illustrate the need for multidimensional valuation systems as they provide multiple overlapping services and benefits in ecological, socio-cultural, economic, and spiritual dimensions. Yet, their conservation is often highly contentious and fiercely debated. Here, we present a pluralist valuation system that identifies the varied services and benefits of elephants, but which adds important dimensions missing from current frameworks such as that of IPBES. Two key additions: (1) incorporating moral values alongside the services and benefits, and (2) incorporating a feedback loop to promote mutually reinforcing interactions, will better support holistic and equitable conservation. Additionally, to aid the interrogation of the kinds of problems that lead to contention in elephant conservation, we mapped the types of trade-offs that occur when different values are at stake, which allows us to identify balanced conservation solutions that will lead to unity. This pluralist valuation approach, which is similarly applicable to other species and ecosystems, clarifies the necessity of properly accounting for stakeholder values in decision making, and promotes fairer conservation decisions that will generate broader buy-in and support, uniting people, and facilitating socially just and sustainable conservation outcomes.
Read Full Paper below:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xNsA4hSA0Jy_DxnPKoW41fgi7xp4gjoN/view?usp=share_link
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Below are a number of articles in relation to loss of biodiversity, the pandemic and how they are interrelated:
What is Biodiversity – video WWF – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y18o0mACCQs
