Science Says: Why Biodiversity Matters To You

You may go your entire life without seeing an endangered species, yet the globe’s biodiversity crisis threatens all of humanity in numerous unseen or unrecognized ways, scientists say.

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A massive United Nations report this week warned that nature is in trouble, estimated 1 million species are threatened with extinction if nothing is done and said the worldwide deterioration of nature is everybody’s problem.

“Nature is essential for human existence and good quality of life,” the report said.

Food, energy, medicine, water, protection from storms and floods and slowing climate change are some of the 18 ways nature helps keep people alive, the report said. And it concluded 14 of those are on long-term declining trends.

“You destroy nature and it’s going to bite you back,” Duke University ecology Stuart Pimm said, pointing to how difficult it has been for China to recover from decades of forest loss.

The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) report points to more than 2,500 wars and other conflicts over fossil fuels, water, food and land to show how important nature is.

“Protecting biodiversity means protecting mankind because we human beings depend fundamentally on the diversity of the living,” UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay said in announcing the report in Paris.

Here are four ways humanity depends on nature, according to the report and scientists:

FOOD