Top 5 Ways Biodiversity Loss Affects Humans

Human-driven nature and biodiversity loss is threatening life on our planet. Biodiversity loss affects humans more severely than you could imagine.

All species, including humans, depend for their survival on the delicate balance of life in nature. Yet biodiversity—the diversity within species, between species, and within ecosystems—is declining faster than it has at any other time in human history. Although the world’s 7.6 billion people represent just 0.01% of all living creatures, humanity has already caused the loss of 83% of all wild mammals and half of plants. How we grow food, produce energy, dispose of waste and consume resources is destroying nature’s delicate balance of clean air, water and life that all species—including humans—depend on for survival.

How biodiversity loss affects humans

The dramatic loss of biodiversity brings serious risks for societies, economies and the health of the planet. Sir Robert Watson, chair of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), observes:

“Biodiversity and nature’s contributions to people sound, to many people, academic and far removed from our daily lives… Nothing could be further from the truth—they are the bedrock of our food, clean water and energy.”

Humans rely on biodiversity in fundamental ways, from pollinating crops to curing diseases. Biodiversity loss affects humans and has come to threaten the very foundations of our economy. One attempt to put a monetary value on goods and services provided by ecosystems estimates the worth of biodiversity at US$33 trillion per year—close to the GDP of the United States and China combined. According to The Global Risks Report 2020 by the World Economic Forum: Risks arising from biodiversity loss include:

1. Food insecurity

Biodiversity underpins the world’s food system. It creates and maintains healthy soils, pollinates plants, purifies water and protects against extreme weather events, among other vital services. The ongoing loss of diversity in indigenous domesticated plants and animals is undermining the resilience of agricultural systems against pests, pathogens and climate change.

Declining diversity of fish species is correlated with lower catches and higher incidence of stock collapse. A new report from the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) identifies another risk: increased carbon-dioxide levels are lowering the nutritional value of food staples such as rice and wheat.

2. Health risks

Well-functioning ecosystems support human health by providing clean air and water and a source of medicines. An estimated 50,000–70,000 plant species are harvested for traditional or modern medicine, and around 50% of modern drugs were developed from natural products. Researchers are increasingly “reverting to nature” to look for new therapeutic options, efforts that are threatened by biodiversity loss. Species currently endangered by biodiversity loss include the South American cinchona tree, the source of the malaria drug quinine.

In many cases, natural molecules for medical treatments are so complex that scientists are not yet able to chemically synthesize them, so they must harvest and store plants and seeds.

Some threatened organisms are critical for medical research: the Mexican axolotl for example, has unique characteristics that enable instructive comparisons with the human genome. It is one of the world’s most recognizable salamanders, and has a unique ability to regenerate severed limbs, which unlocks medicinal and scientific opportunities for everything from tissue repair to development and cancer. After centuries of inbreeding, captive populations are at risk and scientists could lose the opportunity to learn vital information about the animal’s biology that could have significant benefits for human health.

3. Exacerbation of climate change

Terrestrial and marine biodiversity together support the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and the conservation of carbon sinks, sequestering 5.6 gigatonnes of carbon per year—the equivalent of 60% of global human-driven emissions. The health of ecosystems that sequester carbon can depend on individual species: for example, endangered forest elephants are vital to the health of Central Africa’s rainforests.

Collapse of this ecosystem could release 3 billion tonnes of carbon, the equivalent of France’s emissions for 27 years.
Phytoplankton provide another example of how depletion of species and ecosystems could exponentially worsen the climate
crisis: these microscopic plants that drift at the sea surface absorb carbon dioxide on a scale comparable to the world’s
forests, and they are threatened by warming oceans.

4. Business risks

The destruction of nature will inevitably impact bottom lines—for example, through reduced fish stocks disrupting commodity supply chains, economic losses from disasters such as flooding, and the loss of potential new sources of medicine. Extractives, construction, energy, fashion and textiles are among the sectors especially vulnerable to ecological destruction.

All businesses should account for ecological risks to their operations and reputations, yet few do: a recent study of Fortune 500 companies found that nearly half mentioned biodiversity in their sustainability reports, but only five set specific, measurable and time-bound targets. Nature-related risks are undervalued in business decision-making.

5. Risks to indigenous communities

Indigenous communities often rely on their diverse local ecosystems for food and other resources: for example, 60% of the world’s indigenous population uses largely plant-based traditional medicines. And the rest of humanity relies on indigenous communities to be stewards of ecosystems, protecting and preserving environmental resources.

Indigenous peoples comprise less than 5% of the world’s population but protect 80% of its biodiversity. Beyond these known risks are unknowable losses—the risk of losing species we have not yet discovered that could have been domesticated for crops or given rise to new medicinal breakthroughs.

For example, the ocean represents a “virtually untapped resource for discovery of novel chemicals with pharmaceutical potential,” and recent bacterial samples from coastal sediments grown under saline conditions have yielded new antibiotic, antitumor and antiinflammatory compounds.

Another recently discovered ocean organism, a rare genus of marine bacteria called Serinicoccus, was shown to selectively destroy melanoma cancer cells. With continued loss of biodiversity, we may never know what we have missed out on.

Business rationale for restoring ecosystems

On average, the costs of restoration are outweighed tenfold by its benefits to communities. Restoring coastal mangroves, for example, can protect land from storm surges and coastal erosion, develop fisheries and support ecotourism. Investing in the restoration of wetlands, mangroves and coral reefs could reduce insurance costs for businesses in coastal areas vulnerable to flooding.

Likewise, financing ecological forestry practices could reduce insurance costs for businesses, such as power and water utilities, that are exposed to wildfire risks. According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), restoring 46% of the world’s degraded forests could provide up to US$30 in benefits for every dollar spent, boosting local employment and increasing community awareness of biodiversity’s importance.

A critical challenge for the biodiversity agenda will be finding investment models that mobilize private finance to capture a share of this opportunity. New approaches are emerging, such as resilience-financing structures through which businesses can invest in the restoration of ecosystems in return for a reduction in insurance premiums or risk-financing costs. Better data to track the effectiveness of investments will be critical.

Habitat protection and restoration are highly beneficial public goods for which government investment is more than justified. The People’s Bank of China, for instance, now offers capital relief for banks that make green loans. The International Union for Conservation of Nature is developing a species conservation metric that will help companies, banks and governments to quantify their contribution. A renewed interest in nature-based solutions can help combat climate change as well as mitigate the exacerbating effects of nature loss on the climate.

The UN declared 2010 to be the International Year of Biodiversity. Notwithstanding 10 years later, general confusion persists about what precisely biodiversity is, why it relates to human prosperity and how to confront its loss.

From the total collapse of food and health systems to the disruption of entire supply chains, biodiversity loss affects humans adversely if we don’t act right now!