Biodiversity Loss
The biodiversity stripes, created by Professor Miles Richardson, are a visual representation of global biodiversity loss over time.
Biodiversity refers to the variety of life on Earth, plants, animals, microorganisms, and ecosystems. It is essential for clean air, water, food, and climate regulation. Healthy biodiversity supports pollination, soil fertility, and resilience against natural disasters. However, biodiversity is declining rapidly due to habitat loss, pollution, overexploitation, and climate change, threatening ecosystems and human well-being.
This loss undermines food security, health, and economic stability. To become sustainable and resilient, we must protect and restore biodiversity through conservation, sustainable land use, and reducing emissions. Preserving biodiversity ensures ecosystems can adapt to climate change, maintain resources, and support future generations, making it a cornerstone of global sustainability efforts.
Biodiversity Loss
This video from The Royal Society and featuring Sir David Attenborough explains biodiversity’s vital role in food, medicine, and climate regulation, highlights threats from human activity, and showcases solutions to urgently safeguard ecosystems essential for human survival and planetary health.
The United Nations explains how biodiversity underpins ecosystems and human well-being, and how climate change threatens species and habitats. It offers scientific insights, key facts, and links to UN initiatives, reports, and actions aimed at protecting biodiversity and promoting resilience.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) demonstrates how biodiversity underpins health by providing food, medicine, clean water, and climate regulation. WHO promotes biodiversity-informed health policies, traditional medicine, and cross-sectoral collaboration through One Health and nature-based solutions.
Our World in Data provides data and charts to explore global biodiversity trends, drivers of loss, and conservation efforts. This webpage offers insights on wildlife population changes since 1970, explains metrics like the Living Planet Index, and highlights human impacts and solutions for sustainable coexistence.
