Why does biodiversity matter?
Biodiversity is the complex web of life which sustains us all. None of us lives in isolation from nature. Protecting biodiversity is not just about saving animals or habitats. It’s about providing sustaining access to food and water, and it’s about helping us cope with the worst effects of climate change. Biodiversity underpins our entire food supply. It is the coral reefs and seagrass beds that produce the fish we eat. It is the birds and insects that pollinate our crops. And, of course, it is the plants from which our crops were originally derived. We have always depended on biodiversity, but in this century it will be more important than ever in protecting our crops from the diseases, droughts, and other assaults that come with a changing climate. If we allow wild varieties of major staples such as rice, maize and wheat to become extinct, we run the risk of crop failure in the future, yet recent research suggests that three-quarters of the earth’s agricultural crop diversity has alr
