Aquatic biodiversity is important to the health and well-being of our planet, but is being threatened at an increasing rate. It is affected by many variables, including irrigation, contamination, and evaporation.

Irrigation

Irrigation is, possibly, the most subtle threat to aquatic biodiversity. Until recently, most irrigation issues were considered strictly from an engineering standpoint, with little regard to how construction and maintenance of irrigation channels would affect aquatic biodiversity. The channels were just earthworks, with no seepage protection. Over time, seepage affects a body of water’s aquatic biodiversity by changing its composition, affecting all life in or sustained by it.

Contamination of the body of water

In the past, lakes were often used as dumping grounds for waste materials. These materials are ingested by native animal and plant life, directly affecting aquatic biodiversity by killing off entire species. According to Philip Micklin and Nikolay V. Aladin’s article in the Scientific American, over the last thirty years animal life has decreased as follows: Fish species, from 32 to 6; bird species, from 319 to 160; and mammal species, from 70 to 32.

Evaporation

If rate of evaporation exceeds rate of rainfall, snowmelt, or groundwater supply, aquatic biodiversity is threatened.

When a body of water’s volume decreases (transforming the area into first a marsh, then dry ground, then eventually a desert) aquatic biodiversity changes as well. Micklin and Aladin state that the Aral Sea has actually suffered sufficient evaporation that it split into two smaller bodies, the Small and Large Aral Seas. The Large Aral Sea split again, into a deep western basin, a shallow eastern basin, and an isolated gulf. None are as deep as the original body of water and damage has been done to both plant and animal sectors. They further note that the marshland has decreased from 100,000 hectares in 1960 to 15,000 hectares in the 1990s.

Second, the percentage of salinity (the ratio of salt to water) can rise. Two of the smaller bodies are no longer habitable largely due to this aspect. According to Micklin and Aladin, the salinity of the Large Aral Sea has risen from about 14 grams per liter (g/l) to over 100. A typical ocean’s salinity is about 53 g/l, so this is devastating. What were once lush expanses of plant life sustained by the lake’s water are now barren except for the few varieties able to thrive in either saline soil, dry conditions or both.

If damage was restricted to this one body of water, the threat to aquatic biodiversity would not necessarily be world-threatening. The problem (exceedingly costly to fix once the damage has begun), however, is spreading. The latest victims are Central Africa’s Lake Chad and California’s Salton Sea. Unfortunately, even economically fortunate countries are cautious in allocating funds for remedying the problems. Unless ways can be found to help smaller countries, where immediate survival is often more urgent than long-term effects, we can expect these changes to continue, with disastrous effects.

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Biodiversity is one of those terms. Everyone thinks they know what it means, but asked to define it, they often can only do so in the broadest, most general terms. If you don’t know what something is though, there is nothing you can do to protect it.

According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, biodiversity is defined as the variety of all forms of life, from genes to species, through to the broad scale of ecosystems. The term was coined as a contraction of “biological diversity”but has acquired its own meaning.

Since 1986 the term biodiversity and the concepts it covers have achieved widespread use among scientists and civilians alike, as a shorthand term for a very grave and complicated set of issues. Its current usage merges a concern for nature conservation and the natural environment with a concern over the increasing extinction of plant and animal species. Briefly, there are three main types of biodiversity:

Genetic Diversity: Differences of genes within a species. For example this is why you might have red hair and green eyes while your best friend has brown hair and blue eyes.

Species Diversity: Differences among both plant and animal species in an ecosystem.

Ecosystem Diversity: Differences at the ecosystem level. Some areas of the planet are deserts, and some are marshes. Each has its own particular characteristics and species of flora and fauna

Biodiversity is what keeps our air and water clean. It regulates our climate and weather, and provides us with sources of food, shelter, clothing, and is the basis of most modern medicine. It improves our quality of life by creating lovely natural spaces where we can refresh ourselves by relaxing, playing, and admiring nature’s great beauty and variety.

Over the years, the biodiversity of such regions as the African rain forests have provided science with the basis for much of the medicine we take for granted. Belladonna, horse chestnuts, pineapple, and many other plants, both exotic and domestic have all played a part in maintaining our health and well-being.

A diverse population of insects for pollinationwhich helps with the growing and development of much of our foodcan be, and are, harmed by pesticides. And much of our industry (and financial well-being as a nation) is dependent on fibers, building materials, and other natural resources .

The decisions we make, both as individuals and as a nation affect the web of life all over the planet, therefore it is our responsibility to maintain and sustain biodiversity.
It is only by understanding these relationships that we can ensure our decisions will preserve Earths biodiversity for the generations that follow us.

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Biodiversity conservation is one of the most important issues we face today. If we do not take steps to prevent further losses of our natural resources, we will not be able to sustain life as we know it.

Given the importance of biodiversity conservation, it would seem that every government on the planet would have it on their list of top issues. Many do, but biodiversity conservation does not come cheap. In addition to conserving resources going forward, which involves things like reengineering projects so as to minimize negative impacts on the biodiversity of a region, there is the astronomically expensive prospect of repairing damage done to regions over centuries; damage done by both humans and nature itself.

Further, people often think you cannot have biodiversity conservation and development at the same time. They are not aware that the two can go hand in hand, and create a better environment for all.

For example, industrial development, agriculture, and urban development threaten the biodiversity of the Florida Everglades by changing not only the distribution, quantity, and timing of the water flow, but by changing its nutrient levels, specifically the levels of phosphorus. This caused an influx of algae, led to a loss of marshland to sustain varying flora and fauna, and the species of plants and animals that had been living on that marshland. It also led to an influx of non-native (exotic) plants, like Melaleucca and Brazilian pepper. Part of the solution to this particular biodiversity issue is to acquire land to recreate flood plains and to reclaim land being used by agribusiness and return it to as close to its original state as possible. Neither of these actions are cheap.

It takes participation at all levels of society to enact and continue biodiversity conservation, and this is often problematic because each group of people has its own agenda.

Another problem is that, given the scale of the problem in each biodiversity hotspot, technical knowledge may be the easiest thing to acquire. The greater challenge to those wanting to fix the problems may very well be acquiring and continuing support and funding from both individuals and agencies, and creating the political will to address these situations. Areas involving private land and resources will further require consultation and negotiation to create and sustain shared resource management goals, and ways of implementing and monitoring them, or necessitate land land acquisitions by the overarching management institution by federal and state governments. This makes the task of biodiversity conservation even more cumbersome.

If, however, individuals, corporations, and governments do not begin to act together to implement biodiversity conservation, the planet as a whole will lose.

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Almost every region of the world has at least one biodiversity hotspot, with a globe wide total of 34 biodiversity hotspots to date. These hotspots contain our richest biological treasures, but are the most at risk from human and natural abuses.

A biodiversity hotspot is an area that is particularly rich in plant and animal life, but is in grave threat of being destroyed. There are two major criteria for an area to be declared a biodiversity hotspot: It must have at least 1,500 endemic species of vascular plants, giving it more than .5% of the world’s total of these plants, and must have lost a minimum of 70 percent of its original habitat. Further, the combined area of the world’s biodiversity hotspots only covers about 2.3% of Earth’s land surface.

A biodiversity hotspot does not arise out of a vacuum. While it can occur because of damage caused by man or by natural changes to the environment, the damage done by man is, by far, the greater threat.

There are currently four North/Central American biodiversity hotspots The California Floristic Province, the Caribbean Islands, the Madrean Pine-Oak Woodlands, and Mesoamerica and the first two are excellent examples of how these spots fare.

Home of the giant sequoia and the coastal redwood, the California Floristic Province is also the home of a number of threatened species, like the giant kangaroo rat and the desert slender salamander. Some of the last existing California condors also live here. According to Conservation International’s Center for Applied Biodiversity Science, the bulk of the destruction here is caused by commercial farming, expansion of urban areas, pollution and road construction. There are currently 4 threatened species of birds, 5 of mammals, and 8 of amphibians.

The Caribbean Islands are three large groups of islands in the ocean between North and South America: The Bahamas, the Lesser Antilles, and the Greater Antilles. While the majority of this biodiversity hotspot is ocean, approximately 89,000 square miles is land. Elevations vary from about two miles to about minus a quarter of a mile below sea level. The low-lying islands are generally semi-arid and sustain scrub lands, but the trade winds tend to make the higher elevations wetter, allowing a much greater variety of forestland. Both scrub land and forest have been decimated by deforestation and encroachment of civilization. Threatened species include giant shrews, and the Cuban crocodile. There are currently 48 threatened species of birds, 18 of mammals, and 143 of amphibians.

These are just the biodiversity hotspots in our own backyard, so to speak. It is clearly of the utmost importance to prevent further damage to any biodiversity hotspot, because they not only provide information to prevent disease, and sustain many forms of life besides humans, but because they are in and of themselves some of the planet’s greatest treasures.

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The purpose of biodiversity mainstreaming is to have biodiversity principles included at every stage of the planning of projects by businesses and governments. The idea is to incorporate biodiversity considerations into all human activities.

There are currently biodiversity mainstreaming projects going on in many parts of the world, which are focused on increasing involvement in implementing biodiversity principles in an effort to preserve the remaining natural resources.

Part of biodiversity mainstreaming involves working with all sectors of a government in order to have them be aware of biodiversity issues, and make sure that biodiversity issues are not overlooked in the resolution of the problems each sector deals with. Agencies concerned with agriculture, public health, science and technology, the environment, and forests, fisheries and water resources are often the first agencies that biodiversity reformers and conservationists turn to during the planning of civic projects, with other sectors, such as transportation, energy, and mining being brought aboard as the project develops. As you can imagine, getting consensus from all these groups is not an easy task.

Another part of biodiversity mainstreaming is making the concept appealing to the very people who feel threatened by the concept of biodiversity. Lumber or coal workers, for example, are two groups that historically are against those they call tree-huggers because of a perceived threat to their livelihoods. Getting these and other groups to see the benefits of conserving the biodiversity of a region is often difficult.

In Brazil, for example, conservation of biodiversity will require significant efforts from both the public and private sectors. There are many barriers to biodiversity mainstreaming because of a lack of information and priority among key parties. Other barriers include unsustainable development initiatives and poor coordination between public and private participants. Brazils huge geographical size and ecological differences, and a generally low public awareness of the issues seriously compound the difficulties.

In Africa, on the other hand, innovative thinking along with the formation of cooperative partnerships between industry local governments has helped achieve early successes in mainstreaming biodiversity concerns. Efforts to remove barriers to biodiversity mainstreaming consisted of building institutional and policy-level capabilities and partnerships, identifying and fixing market failures, and showing that different practices in all production sectors will contribute greatly to biodiversity management and preservation.

Biodiversity mainstreaming is very important, but implementing it is a very delicate and time-consuming process. If, however, the major players in governments and businesses do not begin to accept it, as they have done in Africa, the consequences for everyone will be an increasingly less habitable world.

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While it shouldn’t be, it’s often hard for people to wrap their minds around the concept of biodiversity. Partly this is because the concept of biodiversity is a complex one, and partly it’s because so many agencies have vested interests in people seeing anything that conserves resources as a threat to their lifestyles. The first steps toward defining the concept of biodiversity were undertaken by E.O. Wilson in the mid-1980s. Since then, the concept has become so important that there are a number of world, national, and local initiatives targeted at reducing biodiversity loss by 2010.

The concept of biodiversity breaks down into three major factors, all of which are interwoven:

First is the concept of genetic diversity. This refers to the variation of genes within a single species and can be further broken down into two components: genetic variations within distinct populations of the same species, and genetic variations within a population.

Next is the concept of species diversity. This take us up one rung as we consider the varieties of species within a region. There are two main measures to assess this: the first is species richness, or the number of species, both plant and animal, that inhabit an area; the second is the more precise taxonomic diversity, which takes into account the relationships between species in addition to their numbers.

The third factor, and the overarching one, is ecosystem diversity. Since the boundaries between various biological communities are highly fluid, this is the most difficult factor to measure accurately, yet it may very well be the most important, since this is where changes that affect all life occur. Climate change, often caused by things like global warming, are among the greatest threats to ecosystem diversity.

Biological diversity includes the variety of ecosystems, and their patterns. It also includes their linkages across regional landscapes. There is a hierarchy of the parts and processes of biological diversity that is, admittedly, artificial. This hierarchy also has a distinct human context (i.e., things are seen in the context of how useful they are to humans). Still, it provides a focus for the concept of biodiversity, which is so infinitely varied that any lens taken to it must be narrowly focused compared to the full spectrum of both the topic and human needs.

Understanding the concept of biodiversity should be a high priority for everyone, since we cannot preserve it if we don’t understand it, and not preserving it will ultimately affect the lives of all of us. One of the best ways of understanding the very broad concept of biodiversity is reading the various definitions used by scientists, philosophers, environmentalists, and others.

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While biodiversity is a hot topic, conservation of biodiversity might easily be considered the 800 pound elephant in the room.

Defining biodiversity is complicated enough: is it just the animal and plant life of a region, or the actual planet supporting them? Does it include or exclude human beings? Can biodiversity and development coexist?

North America is one of the most biologically diverse regions of the world, with ecospheres that vary from deserts to seashores and everything in between. However, North American biological diversity is in great danger. While most of the threats are relegated to one country or another, several of them affect two of the three countries, and their effects and their consequences will potentially affect the entire continent.

The real problem we face, however, is the conservation of biodiversity. While everyone agrees that conserving natural resources is a good idea, there is no consensus on how to go about it. Every group, from governmental agencies to agribusinesses to concerned individuals has their own idea of what conservation of biodiversity means, and what measures should be taken to achieve it. Further, each group has its own agenda to pursue, and may regard some factors of conservation of biodiversity as threats to those agendas.

Part of the problem is that conservation of biodiversity is quite costly. We are just beginning to develop the technologies necessary to preserve biodiversity hotspots, but trying to restore an area to its original state is not only costly, it is often impossible. Further, no one solution fits all hotspots. What is needed in, for example, the Aral Sea region is not necessarily what will work in the Everglades. In the first area, what is needed is reworking the irrigation systems to restore proper salinity of the remaining water, and prevent further seepage due to the composition of the irrigation channels. In the second area, the restoration of the Everglades would require, among other things, reclamation and reflooding of land currently owned privately or by agribusinesses requiring costly and time-consuming negotiations with each of the landowners in question, and, in the case of the agribusinesses, other areas would have to be found to grow their products, lest food shortages arise as a result of the land reclamation.

In other cases, reclamation of the land might include destroying current housing developments or factories, with the collateral losses of jobs in an what might be an economically depressed area.

With so many groups and interests, and the high costs, it is clear that the conservation of biodiversity is a complicated matter. Yet, if it is not resolved during our lifetimes, the problems we leave our descendants will be even more complicated and harder to resolve.

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How to define biodiversity changes with who is doing the defining.

Environmentalists might define biodiversity as the total of all plant and animal life (excluding humans) of the planet, and the planet itself the air, water and land that supports animal and plant life. A scientist might add humans to the animal life considered when trying to define biodiversity.

Governments and businesses often jump through varying hoops while trying to define biodiversity, depending on the audience they are addressing. When they to define it, they are very careful to tailor it to the specific groups of listeners they are addressing, who have varying opinions on the topic. To some groups, biodiversity and anything to do with preserving it is seen as a threat to their livelihood, while other groups regard conservation and anything related to preserving biodiversity as a panacea for all the ills humankind suffers.

In order to accurately define biodiversity, however, there are some specific factors that must be considered, notably:

Genetic diversity, which is the variation of genes within a single species. There are two kinds of genetic diversity: the variations within distinct populations of the same species, and the genetic variation within a population.

Species diversity is the consideration of the varieties of species within a region. While there are many ways to determine this, two of the most popular measures are species richness, or the number of species, both plant and animal, that inhabit an area, and the more precise taxonomic diversity, which considers the relationships between species as well as their numbers.

Ecosystem diversity is usually considered the most difficult type of diversity to measure since the boundaries between various biological communities are highly fluid.

One example of how to define biodiversity is the criteria that USAid uses as requirements for their programs:

The program must have an explicit biodiversity objective. Just saying it’s to conserve biodiversity is not enough. The objective must be achievable and measurable;
All activities related to the project must be identified by analysis of threats to biodiversity;
Monitoring of all indicators for biodiversity conservation is required; and
On-site programs must have the goal of positively impacting the biodiversity of areas that are biologically significant or threatened.

While the study of all biodiversity’s individual factors is fascinating in and of itself, in order to successfully define biodiversity, no one factor should be allowed to overwhelm the consideration of the others. And since there is no one simple, elegant, and workable way to define biodiversity, one of the best ways to comprehend it is to read the varying definitions used by scientists, governments, businesses and environmentalists, in order to get a good overview of the subject.

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Any realistic, workable definition of biodiversity must take multiple factors into account, because biodiversity covers so much of what we know as life.

A good definition of biodiversity must not only take into account that biodiversity covers the air, land and water of Earth and all the animal and plant life thereof. It must take into account that there are three specific types of biodiversity:

Genetic diversity means the variation of genes within a species. It can apply to either distinct populations of the same species (like India’s many different rice varieties) or to the genetic variation within a population (like the many different kinds of jungle cats, with low variation in a particular species, like tigers).

Species diversity is the variety of species within a region. There are many ways to determine this, but no one method has been declared definitive. One of the most often used methods is species richness: the number of species, both plant and animal in an area, but a more precise method is taxonomic diversity. This considers not only the number of species, but their relationships to each other.

Ecosystem diversity is the most difficult kind of diversity to measure because community boundaries, especially in sparsely populated areas are very fluid and almost impossible to determine.

Natural diversity is often synonymous with biological diversity. Scientists word their definition of biodiversity in several ways: First is the number of different species native to an area. Second is the variety of habitats within an ecological area. Third is the variety of interactions between the various species inhabiting an area, and fourth is genetic variation among the individuals of a given species.

Those trying to formulate a realistic working definition of biodiversity are often stopped by the very complexity of the subject. Since biodiversity covers pretty much every aspect of life on Earth, it’s is very difficult to create simple, yet adequate criteria by which to measure or describe the subject concisely. Add in threats such as human depredations (like deforestation or over-fishing) and climate change, and the issue becomes almost indescribable. This leads to patchwork efforts to remedy the damage, which are often too little and often undertaken far too late. If a comprehensive definition of biodiversity cannot be formulated, and soon, the planet’s natural resources will continue to be threatened, because you cannot fix what you cannot name.

In formulating any realistic and workable definition of biodiversity, private agendas must be put aside so that each of the major factors of this multi-faceted topic are given due consideration in balance with the others.

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There is no question as toe of biodiversity the importance of biodiversity. Without it, we would be much poorer in many ways.

While overwhelming, the question of the importance of can be brought into focus by looking at how we value people. Supposed a beloved relative or friend moves or dies. We look at the hole left in our lives by their passing, and reflect on the ways they enriched our lives. We look at what they valued, and possibly decide to adopt some of their values, but primarily, we reflect on how much we have lost by their not being there any more. In short, to quote an old Joni Mitchell song, Big Yellow Taxi, Don’t it always seem to go/You don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone./They paved Paradise and put up a parking lot.

There are very few people who don’t believe in the importance of biodiversity, but most of them are not conscious of what they can do on an individual level to help preserve it. While governments and societies dither about what to sane, what to fix, and what to allocate money, time and effort to, the devastation continues at an alarming rate. Entire species are becoming extinct at rates never seen before. Rivers, lakes, and even oceans are becoming more shallow, or drying up entirely, changing the entire ecosphere and endangering the lives we are accustomed to leading.

In fact, as a society, we are ignoring the importance of biodiversity. We destroy animal and plant species before discovering new ones. We deforest acres of land, without studying them first to see what, other than trees is there. Other than crop rotation, we take no note of how removing diverse plant life from an area depletes the soil and water of a region. And we do all of this faster than nature can remedy the damage. Further, we don’t worry about what we have done until it is too late, the resources are gone, and replacing them would carry an astronomical cost.

Plants that provide medicines and animals that provide foods are vanishing, only to be replaced by scrub and vermin, creating devastating epidemics. Ingestion or absorption of contaminants make these vermin resistant to medical intervention, thereby making it even more difficult to cure or control the diseases being spread. Further, these more resistant germs are crossing from species to species, and, like bird flu, making the jump to humans.

This is just one example of how the importance of biodiversity (and the preservation thereof) is relevant to human survival. The internet is full of organizations dedicated to educating people, businesses and governments about the importance of biodiversity, and it behoves us to do so before we have lost much of what makes life precious to us.

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