The United Nations proclaimed May 22 as the International Biodiversity Day to increase understanding and awareness of biodiversity issues. The theme for International Biodiversity Day 2016 is “Mainstreaming biodiversity, sustaining people and their livelihoods.”
The rate at which species are disappearing has increased dramatically over the past 150 years. The extinction rate has increased to thousands per decade due to human activities. Ecologist EO Wilson estimates that about 10,000 species or subspecies are being lost a year (27 per day). Modern societies are primarily responsible for far higher levels of biodiversity destruction. The 1975 Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) was a significant step toward worldwide protection of endangered flora and fauna.
Biodiversity is the foundation for life and for the essential services provided by ecosystems. It, therefore, underpins peoples’ livelihoods and sustainable development in all areas of activity, including economic sectors such as agriculture, forestry, fisheries and tourism, among others. By halting biodiversity loss, we are investing in people, their lives and their well-being.
The local communities can actively prevent destruction of biodiversity. In Madagascar, several dry forest stretches with enormous biodiversity value are conserved by local communities. In India, thousands of forests, pastures, wetlands and coastal stretches are conserved by communities through either traditional or new norms for various reasons like livelihood security, ethical concerns, cultural continuity or political security.
Traditional and indigenous communities mostly depend upon subsistence farming and derive a substantial part of their diet from wild plants and animals. These communities also play an important role in the conservation and management of species and ecosystems. Biodiversity loss as a result of potential adverse impacts of climate change will affect indigenous people in many ways. The IPCC report (2007b) predicts that climate change will further weaken the health status of millions of people, particularly those with low adaptive capacity.
Dry lands host a unique array of biodiversity which cover 40 per cent of the earth’s terrestrial surface and are home to over 2 billion people, the majority of whom belong to the poorest people in the world. About 32 per cent of the global biodiversity hotspots are in dry lands. At least 30 per cent of the world’s cultivated plants originate in dry lands and over 40 per cent of all cultivated lands worldwide are in dry lands. While dry lands people are acknowledged to be among the most vulnerable communities who have successfully managed and lived from dry land ecosystem services over centuries.
Prof Sir Nicholas Stern in his review predicts that living conditions and livelihood opportunities of millions of people may be affected by climatic variability and hence, biodiversity loss. Stern also forecasts that sea level rise could cause major displacement of people from coastal areas. In the Arctic, warmer summers and smaller icepacks will make life difficult for the polar beer, seal and other Arctic mammals and fish on which indigenous people depend.
Biodiversity can help to reduce the effects of climate change on the world’s population and ecosystems. Biodiversity is threatened by climate change, but biodiversity resources can reduce the impacts on climate change. It is, therefore, crucial to conserve biodiversity which is very sensitive to climate change. If the threats of biodiversity loss and climate change are tackled together, the prospects for adapting successfully to the challenges of the coming decades will be improved. This constitutes the overall message for this year’s celebration of the World Biodiversity Day. Institutions and policy makers play a key role in empowering indigenous and traditional people by securing and enhancing their entitlement to resources including land, water, biodiversity as well as healthcare, technology, education, information and power in order to improve their capacity to adapt to climate change and decrease their social and biophysical vulnerability. Communities which are already suffering from bad health conditions and malnutrition are suggested to be more vulnerable to climate change impacts and to have a lower adaptive capacity compared to healthy communities.
(Dr Senapati is faculty member, Department of Chemistry, Trident Academy of Technology, Bhubaneswar-751024, dr_senapati@yahoo.com)