The Importance Of Biological Diversity

Biodiversity is commonly described as the variety and diversity of life on Earth. “The number of species of plants, animals, and microorganisms, the enormous diversity of genes in these species, the different ecosystems on the planet, such as deserts, rainforests and coral reefs are all part of a biologically diverse Earth” (Shah, A. 2012). In fact, Earth is made of complex ecosystems’ interacting with each other’s, giving life to any and every species, impacting on climate, human and animals’ lives and so much more. Because biodiversity or biological diversity comprises so many things, several definitions have been made. But in the context of this report, we will use the definition that was made in 1992 by the Convention of Biological Diversity:

Rosen when he organised what is nowadays known as the National Forum on Biodiversity that occurred in 1986 in Washington D.C. In 1987, the US Office of Technological Assessment (OTA) issued a report named ‘Technologies to maintain Biological Diversity’ in which they start with the question “What is Biological Diversity?” “Biological Diversity refers to the variety and variability among living organisms and the ecological complexes in which they occur”. In fact, they also defined diversity as “the number of different items and their relative frequency”. They also wanted to emphasize on the fact that diversity vary within ecosystems, species and genetic levels. In fact, ecosystem diversity, species diversity, genetic diversity can vary in many different ways. In the OTA’s report, they give the example of ecosystem diversity by saying that a landscape that is interspersed with grasslands, croplands and woodlands for example has more diversity than a landscape with most of the woodlands converted to grasslands and croplands. We can see through this example that biodiversity is a complex concept and that is the reason why it is difficult to explain it. Being aware of this, we will conclude this section by giving a very broad definition of biodiversity as the “life on Earth, the variety of living organisms, their habitats and the interaction between them” (DAC, 2010) knowing that no definition can fully cover the complex concept that is