The UN declared 2010 to be the year to protect Biodiversity and to prevent from its destruction. The wide variety of plants, animals and microorganisms is a part of a fragile balance that keep us all together. Us, living creatures.
Biological resources have been the origins and the preservers of our ecosystems. In what way? We should know that biodiversity gathers all the species of our planet. And it includes as well the differences in those species. So far, about 1.75 species have been identified, most of them being tiny living creatures, such as insects. But estimations bring this number up to 13 million, or even 100 million species. Biodiversity is also including the genetic differences within every species themselves. Therefore, chromosomes, genes and DNA, all that determine who we are, unique from one another, grant a biodiversity inside the species. The best example is non identical twins: biodiversity from one and only spot.
And these species are organized in different hierarchies. The most famous of them is the Food Chain. Imagine only one species disappearing from this chain, it would actually endanger biodiversity. If plankton (microorganisms in the seas) were to disappear, fishes wouldn't have anymore food, and fisherman would lose their job. And this is only one example among millions of others. No predators, or no prays, and the balance is shifted. The same symbiosis can be seen with the bees and flowers : if they disappear, this is about 80% of world food supplies that would be put in jeopardy. The many balances must be kept in order to guarantee the durability of our presence on this planet. But no one really gets it value.
Ecosystems are part of this Biodiversity. Some species only exist under very special conditions. That's why it is important to try and preserve the various landscapes and their particularities. Deserts, forests, wetlands, mountains, lakes, rivers, seas and oceans, every part of our planet is important. The best example remaining is the rainforest in South America: its ecosystems is one of the richest on the planet, but is constantly threatened by destruction.
The Biological Diversity we can see today is the result of millions of years of evolutions. Evolutions that have or haven't been
influenced. Human is the bigger influencer Biodiversity had to face in all those years. Mankind has to be careful, because it's now putting its own environment at risk by influencing biodiversity
too much. Some often quote Janusz Bardach: “Man is a wolf to man”. If man comes to a point where he puts its own survival in jeopardy by influencing
in a bad way its own environment. It's in our own interest to keep biodiversity intact. So, instead of being selfish towards one another, let's be selfish towards our planet. We live on it, we
want to keep it, we act for it.
Ban Ki Moon, Secretary General of the United Nations, addresses the world about Biodiversity:
UN Secretary General Welcome Message for the 2010 International Year of Biodiversity
Official Website: 2010: International Year for
Biodiversity
Summary:
