How Are People Affecting Biodiversity

Source: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 2013, Kieran Noonan-Mooney, CBD and Christine Gibb, CBD and FAO, "The Youth Guide to Biodiversity" 1st Edition (Chapter 2) Youth and United Nations Global Alliance. Reproduced with permission.

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© Julia Kresse (age 15)

Chapter 2. Verbatim.

Every day we are faced with choices. As individuals we must decide what to eat, what to wear, how to get to school, and so on. Schools, businesses, governments and other groups also make choices. Some of these choices impact biodiversity, the variety of life on Earth. Sometimes our choices have positive impacts, for instance when we decide to use biodiversity sustainably or to protect it better. Increasingly, however, many of our actions are having negative consequences for biodiversity. In fact, human activities are the main cause of biodiversity loss. 

The negative impacts of our actions have become so great that we are losing biodiversity more quickly now than at any other time in Earth’s recent history. Scientists have assessed more than 47 000 species and found that 36 percent of these are threatened with extinction, the state whereby no live individuals of a species remain. In addition, extinction rates are estimated to be between 50 and 500 times higher than those observed from fossil records or the so-called “background rate”. When species which are possibly extinct are included in these estimates, the current rate of species loss increases to between 100 and 1 000 times larger than the background rate! 

The current rate of biodiversity loss has led many to suggest that the Earth is currently experiencing a sixth major extinction event, one greater than that which resulted in the extinction of the dinosaurs. However, unlike past extinction events, which were caused by natural disasters and planetary changes, this one is being driven by human actions.