FROM AGREEMENT TO ACTION: BUILDING BACK BIODIVERSITY!

May 22 marks the International Day for Biological Diversity. This year’s theme for International Biodiversity Day was “From Agreement to Action: Building Back Biodiversity.”

In 1992, the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, known as Earth Summit, was held in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil. During this momentous gathering, global leaders agreed on the pressing necessity to confront the worldwide decline of biodiversity. As a result, many nations adopted the Convention on Biological Diversity (CDB) on May 22, 1992. Since then, May 22^nd has been celebrated as International Biodiversity Day every year.

The main aim of International Biodiversity Day is to increase understanding and awareness related to biodiversity issues.

What is Biodiversity?

Biodiversity is the short form of biological diversity, which means the natural environment around us, the variety of all living things (animals, plants, humans, and even microorganisms), and all the interactions on our planet.

Biodiversity can be split into three main sectors covering the whole biodiversity area. They are Genetic biodiversity, Species biodiversity, and Ecological Biodiversity.

The variety of different types of organisms has been discussed in species diversity. In genetic diversity, the variations among the genetic resources of microorganisms are discussed. Finally, ecological diversity is the study of the ecosystem with living and non-living organisms and their interactions.

Importance of Biodiversity

Biodiversity is an obligatory thing that supports every living organism and the environment to continue their existence. The atmosphere and every organism in the world are connected directly or indirectly. Therefore, every factor of biodiversity is significant to life on the planet.

The health of plants and animals, better connection between organisms, soil, water, and air quality, food security, medicinal items from the environment, and many other things depend on biodiversity. Economic benefits can also be taken with broader biodiversity with industries such as tourism. In addition, biodiversity can create jobs in different related sectors; more on this here

“From Agreement to Action: Building Back Biodiversity.”

This year’s biodiversity day celebration is more unique than the other years.  With the theme “From agreement to action: Build back biodiversity,” this year, biodiversity day is focused on transitioning from commitments to concrete actions to rebuild biodiversity.

And this is the first International Biodiversity Day after the UN Biodiversity Conference (COP15), held from 7 to 19 December 2022 in Montreal, Canada.

“Nature and biodiversity are dying the death of billion cuts. And humanity is paying the price for betraying its closest friend. In the world of the UN Secretary-General, ‘we are committing suicide by proxy.’ This conference of the parties must secure the future of our planetary life support system.”

– Inger Anderson – UN Under-Secretary-General and UNEP Executive Director at COP15 –

COP15 ended with a landmark biodiversity agreement named the Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF). The main aim of this agreement is to guide a global action plan on nature through 2030, which focuses on biodiversity loss, ecosystem reinstallation, and protecting indigenous rights. This action plan will save 30% of the earth and 30% of destroyed ecosystems by 2030.

The main point of International Biodiversity Day 2023 is the implementation of the actions on that GBF agreement (Actions to Agreement), which included activities, mainly focused on Building Back Biodiversity on the earth.

How to ‘BUILDING BACK BIODIVERSITY’?

The Breakdown of biodiversity is happening even at this moment when you read this article. So, first, for ‘Build Back Biodiversity,’ as the initial step, the ways it breaks down should be identified and increase the awareness of the individuals is vital to building biodiversity back.

Along with International Biodiversity Day, more attention to the celebration has been paid to awareness and educational programs as usual. Numerous things can happen if there is better awareness and education. It doesn’t matter who you are, your status, or your age. Still, you can do something without others’ help or involvement and with just a superficial awareness. It starts with simple points we have learned about protecting the environment since childhood, like reducing, reusing, and recycling.

While talking about drivers of biodiversity loss, many reasons directly or indirectly affect it, such as deforestation, over-harvesting, environmental pollution, invasive species, etc. Most of them are the results of human activities. So, controlling harmful human activities on biodiversity is essential.

As mentioned above, self-improvement on the individual choice in a person, biodiversity conservation, pressuring the government as well as rules and regulations from the government, and other practices that can be done as the solutions for environmental destruction and natural resources pollution are helping on building back biodiversity step by step.

Climate change is also a main natural reason that can negatively affect biodiversity on the earth. It is becoming a significant threat to biodiversity by accelerating species extinction from the planet. So, while we are talking about building back biodiversity, climate change is a central theme to be discussed along with it.

Climate Changes and Biodiversity

There are many reasons for climate change. With climate change, there is a significant impact on the biodiversity of the earth. Climate change can be known as an essential driver of biodiversity loss directly and indirectly.

With climate change, global warming is mainly happening. Threats to biodiversity loss are occurring in different sectors with global warming. Just like human activities are the primary cause for many reasons that cause biodiversity loss, climate changes also show a dispersed influence on biodiversity.

Habitat loss:

Habitat loss for animals is one of the major threats to animals from climate change. This is a primary driver for species extinction. With climate changes, animals lose their habitat because of high temperatures, floods, or other climatic changes. Animals influenced mainly by habitat loss by global warming are polar bears, fishes like salmon, touts, coral reefs, etc. In addition, some animals that live near coastal areas lose their habitats to seawater rice. Sometimes floods may destroy animal habitats as well.

Loss of food and water:

With climatic change, natural disasters like drought and flood may affect more often. These natural disasters may cause food and water shortages for wildlife. Some animals tend to migrate during such times, but this is a massive challenge for animal species to survive and threatens biodiversity.

Health impacts:

Climate change can cause health issues to not only animals but also plants. With this, some of the species face the danger of extinction.

Natural Disasters:

Most of the natural disasters are caused by climate change. Natural disasters lead many animals to death and health issues. This is also a significant threat to animal species.

Human-Wildlife Conflict:

Above mentioned negative influences on animals causes human-wildlife conflict. This convinced humans that wild animals are a threat to them. As a result, the human population tries to get rid of them by hunting wild animals legally or illegally. With this, many animal populations are in great danger.

Threats with Extinction:

Some animals’ offspring face difficulties, putting the whole species in danger. For example, sea turtles prepare their nests on the seashore under sand. The temperature of the sand is the decisive factor in deciding the sex of offspring. Global warming increases the temperature of the sand, and this causes an increase in the number of female offspring and creates a shortage of males. This can lead turtles to extinction.

Threats to Plant Biodiversity:

Global warming increases the water consumption of plants for the biochemical processes inside the plant. Especially in a dry environment, the evaporation of water from a plant rises. If the plant does not get enough water from an outside source, it gets dry and may die or become unhealthy.

But in a high-temperature situation, the water level in the soil can be minimal and not enough to fulfill the plant’s needs.

Some plants’ reproduction also is disturbed by climate changes. This may harm plant biodiversity by driving some plants into endangered zones.

Building Back Biodiversity under the Influence of Climate Changes

Climate change is a common and significant issue in the world today. Unfortunately, though this topic was discussed thoroughly, climate change is still happening along with numerous negative results.

Along with the theme of International Biodiversity Day, we have to build biodiversity by mitigating and adapting to climate change. Therefore, climate change is one main thing that we should pay attention to while building biodiversity.

Climate change mitigation and adaptation is a complex process. So, even with the difficulties of climate change, controlling biodiversity loss is a more challenging task.

But the best thing is that human actions for climate change affect biodiversity loss control parallelly. For example, avoiding deforestation and protecting natural resources are the few best ways to control biodiversity loss, and they are also good practices for climate change mitigation.

So, when we practice one action towards building back biodiversity, it also has a positive influence on climate change as well. When climate changes have a positive vibe, it also indirectly gives a positive vibe for building back biodiversity. The impact on biodiversity is twice as much as the input action hoped to have.

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