Biodiversity
Bleaching of coral reefs leading to their death (warming and water pollition)
Credit: Sabangvideo / Shutterstock
Summary
Biological diversity, or biodiversity, is threatened by the deterioration of natural environments, the over-exploitation of natural resources, demographic pressure, urbanization, pollution, and climate change. However, implementing policies to protect biodiversity comes up against many obstacles: the divergence of interests and priorities between states; consideration of the numerous actors involved; the appropriate scale of action; favored mechanisms for action, and so on.
In three decades, biodiversity (biological diversity) has become a key public policy issue that cuts across all areas and operates at all scales, from genes and human microbiota through to biospheres. It has three components, which interact with each other: diversity of living species (fauna and flora), ecosystem diversity and genetic diversity.
Facing a probable sixth extinction
As the planet enters the Anthropocene era, awareness of the urgent need to preserve biodiversity is patchy.
Change in the distribution of anthropogenic biomes, 1700-2000
Comment: This map shows the distribution of the global land surface, according to type of biome, between 1700 and 2000. The proportion of wildlands and semi-natural areas has been halved within the space of 300 years: in 1700 it occupied over 90% of the earth’s surface compared with 45% today. Most land has now been transformed, even if partially, by human activity. This anthropization has mainly come about by land being turned into prairies, meadows, and grassland, pastures and cultivated soil, representing 40% of global cover in 2000.
The degradation of natural environments, terrestrial and aquatic, can be observed in an unprecedented rate of species extinction (cycads, conifers, corals, amphibians, mammals, birds, insects, etc.).
Endangered species, by major families, 2017
Comment: The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) records and assesses threatened living species. Even within the different kingdoms of living organisms (animal, vegetable, and fungi), each class presents a very varied number of threatened species. Nevertheless, these are systematically above 13% (with the exception of green algae). Among all vertebrates, amphibians are the most threatened (32%). Among invertebrates, it is worms and spiders (82% and 68%). Among plants, it is mosses, flowers, and ferns (75%, 52%, and 51%) as well as lichens and fungi (77 %).
Soil and coastline erosion as well as the systematic degradation of forests, grasslands and wetlands (lakes, rivers, underground aquifers, mangroves, lagoons, peat bogs, marshes, oases, coral reefs, etc.) are weakening the ecosystems necessary to regulate water resources and purification and to prevent so-called natural disasters (floods, mudslides, fires, droughts, avalanches, etc.).
The overexploitation of natural resources is also damaging biodiversity. More than three-quarters of the earth’s land is now being used by humans – and the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) estimates that this will increase to 90% of the total by 2050. The only remaining unused lands will be in areas unsuitable for humans: deserts, mountains, tundra, the polar regions. Intensive agriculture in Europe and America, based on the systematic use of chemical inputs (synthetic fertilizers, crop protection products, etc.), is diminishing the fertility of arable land – while monocultures and seed homogenization are further reducing diversity. Additional threats come from mass consumption, biopiracy and the international trafficking of protected species.
Aggravating factors
Demographic pressure and rapid urbanization (urban sprawl, growth in automobile use, incremental loss of arable land), especially in countries of the South, are eroding biodiversity. Continuous pollution of the air, soil, groundwater, rivers and oceans by industrial and agricultural activities, the growing production of waste linked with consumerist lifestyles, industrial accidents and oil spills, and the unchecked growth of invasive species are placing the biodiversity and biological productivity of natural environments under severe pressure.
Finally, climate change is amplifying some of the degradations mentioned above: ocean acidification; species loss, proliferation, and displacement; extreme meteorological events, etc.
The first biodiversity policies appeared in the late 19th century, with the creation of protected areas allowing for nature conservation while simultaneously controlling the territory of indigenous populations (North America, British colonial empire). International agreements were adopted to protect species regarded as “useful” for agriculture, fishing or hunting, supported by national nature conservation groups. More recently, scientists, UN institutions and organizations dedicated to biodiversity (International Union for Conservation of Nature [ IUCN ], World Wildlife Fund [ WWF ]), have worked to raise awareness and develop our understanding of the issues involved, creating new tools such as the system for classifying endangered species. The Biosphere Conference organized by UNESCO in 1968 was followed by conferences in Stockholm (1972, with the creation of the United Nations Environment Programme [ UNEP ]) and Rio, where the Convention on Biological Diversity was adopted (1992), and then by the creation of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) in 2012: step by step, an international regime for biodiversity has taken shape – one which does, though, contain many ambiguities.
Ratification of 8 environmental agreements, 1974-2018
Comment: This series of graphs shows the dates when eight international treaties on the environment were ratified. Three conventions are old ones (over 35 years) which have only very gradually been ratified right up to the present day: they are those dealing with the trade in threatened species (CITES), wetlands (Ramsar), and the protection of migratory species (CMS). Two conventions in the 1990s were massively and swiftly ratified: one on biological diversity and the other to combat desertification. However, very few states have yet ratified the two treaties on genetic and phytogenetic resources.
Extending the scope of protection
The scale of the challenges involved raises the question of whether biodiversity protection should be contained within specific sectors – or extended across all public policy areas (mainstreaming), given that what is at stake is a shared resource, a public good, a common heritage and a shared pool of knowledge.
Negotiations expose the divergent interests of the various actors involved. Environmentalist NGOs of the North defend biodiversity as a common good, while countries of the South claim sovereignty in the management of their natural resources (leading to the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety in 2000, a compromise between the G77 nations and the European Union), asserting their intent to use them for their own development (Nagoya Protocol on Access and Benefit-sharing in 2010).
At a time when many countries are cutting back public expenditure on research and development, industry is playing a major and growing role in many areas: defining pollution standards, specifying compensation mechanisms for biodiversity destruction (REDD+ projects), setting up certification systems (fishing, forestry), leveraging biodiversity for its genetic resources and economic potential – and claiming biological material as intellectual property (bioprospecting, biopiracy), and using market mechanisms (often funded by the tourist industry) such as payment for ecosystem services, etc.
At local level, indigenous peoples living from natural resources are calling for more inclusive, community-based ways of managing these resources (community empowerment), making more effective use of indigenous and local expertise in maintaining or restoring them (agroecology, community forestry, permaculture, etc.).
- biodiversity > Biodiversity
- This notion originated during the preparatory work for the 1992 Rio Earth Summit. It describes the diversity of the living world in the strictest sense, emphasizing the unity of all life, and the interdependency connecting the three elements of biological diversity: genes, species, and ecosystems. The concept takes the living world out of the restricted field of natural sciences and places it at the center of international debate. Today, biodiversity is a global heritage to be protected and a source of potential revenue that is hotly disputed between states, multinational companies, and local communities.
- ecosystem > Ecosystem
- Dynamic interactions connecting a biotope (biological environment presenting uniform living conditions) to the living beings that cohabit it. Developed by a British botanist, Arthur George Tansley, during the 1930s, the ecosystem concept progressively replaced the concept of “natural environments” that preceded it, emphasizing the interdependency of living beings (including humans) and their environment. In consequence, it underscores how damage to an ecosystem also impacts the human communities living in it. A biome (also called an ecozone or macroecosystem) is a group of ecosystems characteristic of a geographical area and named in accordance with its predominant vegetation and animal species. Anthromes (or anthropogenic biomes) are biomes that have been modified by sustained direct human interaction with ecosystems.
- Anthropocene
- Etymologically, it means “the human era.” Many scientists have confirmed the advent of a new geological era replacing the Holocene (the era covering around the last 11,500 years), which is characterized by the far-reaching effects of human activity on natural ecosystems and terrestrial geology, considered by some to be irreversible. The date when this era began is still a matter of debate, varying between the Industrial Revolution (in the early 1800s) and the atomic era (starting from the 1950s).
- urbanization > Urbanization
- A process by which populations and activities become concentrated in limited spaces characterized by the density and diversity of social activities. The long history of urbanization across the world suddenly accelerated in the second half of the 20th century, as towns and cities (large and small, notably in the new post-colonial countries) increased in both number and size (in number of inhabitants and surface area). The largest are becoming vast conurbations. The rate of growth is very uneven across the world and is fastest (due to rural exodus and population growth) in the poorest countries where public urban policy is least effective. The environmental cost of lengthy daily commuting (air and water pollution, waste management, supply of goods to the inhabitants, gradual loss of agricultural land, etc.) must now be balanced against the advantages offered by urban density in terms of the concentration of innovation, skills and exchanges of all kinds.
- territory > Territory
- Surface area occupied by a human group. This term has different meanings in different social science disciplines. For geographers it is a socialized, constructed space in which distance is continuous, with more or less defined borders, such as, but not confined to, states. For sociologists and political scientists, a territory is a socially constructed space confined by borders which provide the structuring principle for a political community and enable a state to impose its authority and control on the population. It is linked to the context, history and actors of its construction. For Max Weber, the modern, rational and legal state is closely linked to territoriality.
- indigenous > Indigenous
- Although there is no universally accepted definition to describe indigenous or first peoples, the UN has declared that “indigenous peoples are inheritors and practitioners of unique cultures and ways of relating to people and the environment. They have retained social, cultural, economic and political characteristics that are distinct from those of the dominant societies in which they live.” The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples was adopted in 2007. According to the UN, indigenous peoples represent 370 million individuals, forming over 5,000 different groups, present in around 90 countries on five continents and speaking more than 4,000 languages, most of which are becoming extinct.
- international regime > International Regime
- This notion used in international relations has been employed by different theoretical currents (realist, liberal, constructivist) since the late 1970s to designate “systems of functional cooperation” that operate internationally. According to Stephen Krasner, international regimes are “sets of implicit or explicit principles, norms, rules, and decision-making procedures around which actors’ expectations converge in a given area of international relations” (International Regimes, 1983, p. 2). Whether or not they are institutionalized (intergovernmental organizations), they usually involve state and non-state actors (NGOs, companies, experts, etc.) in specific areas of international cooperation (trade, health, environment, human rights, etc.).
- development > Development
- Definitions of development and its opposite – underdevelopment – have varied considerably according to the political objectives and ideological positions of those using these words. In the 1970s, Walt Whitman Rostow conceived of it as an almost mechanical process involving successive stages of economic growth and social improvement, whereas Samir Amin analyzed the relationships between center and peripheries, seeing the development of the former as founded on the exploitation of the latter. In Latin America, the dependency theory condemned the ethnocentrism of the universal view that the “periphery” of underdeveloped states could simply catch up through modernization. Talking of poor or developing “countries” masks the inequalities that also exist within societies (in both Northern and Southern hemispheres) and individuals’ connections to globalization processes.
- research and development > Research and Development
- Investment made by businesses (internally or through outsourcing) in fundamental, applied and experimental research to develop knowledge enabling new products to be developed or to ensure productivity gains. This research is key in the context of competition between multinational companies, their global operations (more centralized than production), international negotiations (patents), links between governments and business (public-private research) and North-South relations.
- intellectual property > Intellectual Property
- This term covers the rights of use of an “intellectual creation” such as copyright in literary and artistic works and industrial property rights, such as trademarks and geographic origins, the protection of inventions (patents) and industrial models and designs. At a time when ideas and knowledge constitute a growing proportion of the added value of goods sold throughout the world, these rights are intended to protect investment in research and development and ensure long-term funding. The Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), signed in 1994 as part of the foundation of the WTO, harmonizes these protections in internationally recognized laws that oblige member states to combat counterfeiting and pirating.
- agroecology > Agroecology
- As a farming practice, agroecology includes organic farming within a wider ecological management of cultivated space (composting, complementarity between species, hedges and groups of trees, mound and deep-bed gardening, etc.) so as to improve biodiversity and water use, encourage reforestation and combat erosion. As an interdisciplinary scientific approach combining agronomy, ecology, economics, sociology, agroecology relies on exchanges between farmers, scientists, social and environmental activists, and political decision-makers. Debates about agroecology interweave themes such as energy transition, peasant farming, demands for food sovereignty, the circular economy, and short supply chains, re-forging the link between producers and consumers (“consum’actors”). Organic farming is characterized by the refusal to use chemical inputs (or else limiting them strictly to exceptional and temporary cases) and genetically modified organisms (GMOs), and attempts to reintroduce traditional farming methods that require a larger workforce than intensive agriculture (recycling of organic matter, crop rotation, non-intensive rearing, traditional irrigation, and local crops).