What Is Biodiversity and Why Is It Important?

The conversation about rapidly increasing climate change also touches on the topic of biodiversity. But what is biodiversity, and why is it important in the first place? Let’s learn more about this issue.

Table of contents

• What is biodiversity? Important reasons for taking care of it
• The significance of biodiversity
• Where is the greatest loss of biodiversity?

What is biodiversity? Important reasons for taking care of it

Biodiversity, short for biological diversity, describes all life on Earth, on all its levels, including not only species but whole ecosystems too. It encompasses each living organism on our planet – from the tiniest microbes all the way to humans. At this point in time, we’ve identified about 1.6 million species. It may seem like a lot, but it’s probably just a small part of life on Earth. Not many people seem to realise that biodiversity is crucial to most aspects of our lives, including health and safety.

The significance of biodiversity

What is biodiversity and its importance? We’ve answered the first part of this question, but what about the rest? Biodiversity is essential for our survival as it creates and sustains healthy ecosystems that supply us with all things necessary for our life, such as air, water, food and even medicine. Studies show that even the smallest organisms have a profound impact on ecosystems, and their loss can cause a snowball effect. Let’s look at the bees, for example. Those tiny insects are pollinators and play a key role in agriculture. Along with birds, they are responsible for about 30% of the world’s crop production. At first, they may not seem significant, but their absence would be catastrophic. We can apply the same rule to millions of other organisms around us.

Where is the greatest loss of biodiversity?

What are the main dangers to biodiversity? The biggest threat is humankind, of course. Climate change, rising levels of pollution, the change in land use as well as its over-exploitation are just a few ways of destroying biodiversity. This issue is most pronounced on islands, the tropics, rainforests, and oceans. Fortunately, the choices that can save our planet’s biodiversity are in our hands. Sometimes simply protecting the habitat isn’t enough. This is when we have to think about other actions, including restoration and reintroduction of certain species.

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