The BiodiversityWhat is the definition of biodiversity? When we ask, what is the definition of biodiversity? It depends on what we want to do with it. The term is widely and commonly misused, leading to significant misinterpretation of the importance of how animals function on Earth and why they matter a great deal, to human survival. Here I will try to More and Climate Change IPBES-IPCC report came out last week with delegates confirming the over-riding view that the two are connected. It’s a step forward but the report does make for rather confusing reading. The summary makes no mention of the importance of wildlife, even though animals are the only mechanism to stabilise ecosystemsHow ecosystems function An ecosystem is a community of lifeforms that interact in such an optimal way that how ecosystems function best, is when all components (including humans and other animals) can persist and live alongside each other for the longest time possible. Ecosystems are fuelled by the energy created by plants (primary producers) that convert the Sun's heat energy More. The report doesn’t go far enough to explain the dire threat of biodiversity loss and if animal impactWhat is Animal Impact? Without wildlife, Earth would not be habitable for humans, because it's animals that stabilise ecosystems. It’s a fundamental law of nature that animals (and humans) exist because we are the most likely lifeforms to minimise environmental chaos. Animal impact, therefore, is a measure of how much all wildlife is collectively responsible for creating a habitable Earth. The More were to be considered, it would create an alternative way of thinking and a very different priority for conservationWhy is animal conservation important? Animal conservation is important, because animals are the only mechanism to create biodiversity, which is the mechanism that creates a habitable planet for humans. Without animals, the energy from today’s plants (algae, trees, flowers etc) will eventually reach the atmosphere and ocean, much of it as carbon. The quantity of this plant-based waste is so More. Concepts of nature, nature-based solutions, biodiversity, ecosystems and climate still don’t make enough sense without factoring in the ecosystem stabilisation role of animals.
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Biodiversity loss is a far greater threat than climate
Central to the panels’ argument is that climate change and biodiversity are ‘two sides of the same coin‘ … ‘intricately linked‘ with ‘complex and multiple connections’. Confused?
After reading the Biodiversity and Climate Change IPBES-IPCC report, I was left wondering whether climate and biodiversity had been given proportionate consideration – maybe that’s the point. Being the first time these two matters have been considered together, I suspect biodiversity still plays second fiddle.
It’s like comparing a gas leak in your kitchen with the functioning of your gas stove. Sure, they’re connected, but you don’t solve your cooking problems by stopping a gas leak and still letting your oven break down.
Insofar as we have rapid global warming, the two matters are definitely separate problems, but biodiversity is a far greater existential issue than climate change will ever be. ‘Two sides of a coin’ implies threat in equal measure but that’s not the case. If the public knew the dangers of biodiversity loss, we might have a greater sense of urgency.
Problem #1> Climate change
… is caused by over-consumption of fossil fuel and will simply be addressed by burning less fossil fuel.
Problem #2> The mass extinction and importance of wildlife
… is a huge existential threat, far greater than fossil fuel-induced climate change. This is because it is destabilising ecosystems all over the world and collapsing food security and all other life support. Stable climate is a by-product of all those other factors that we need to survive.
The critical need for biodiversity restoration is brushed off a little, with the summary preface using language based around ‘the synergies and trade-offs between climate and biodiversity’. The scientific outcomes report contains a problem statement that presents biodiversity more as a way to adapt to climate change, than the bigger existential risk.
There is no scenario where it’s possible to ‘trade-off’ biodiversity against fossil fuel use. They are two quite separate problems, with one far outweighing the other.
The story the report seems to be trying to tell is the one I’ve summarised (left). The top part is the current situation, where the two narratives are divergent.
Biodiversity deals in the structure, function(Of an ecosystem). A subset of ecosystem processes and structures, where the ecosystem does something that provides an ecosystem service of value to people. More and process of ecosystems, while climate change is about carbon emissions. The IPBES and IPCC rightly want us to understand that the two issues are convergent (bottom). Both are necessary for human survival
Confusion arises around what ‘biodiversity’ actually means
Biodiversity loss and climate are linked, but only because destruction of wildlife destabilises the ecosystems that deliver climate. That’s not the same as the threat of our dependence on fossil fuels, which has to be dealt with swiftly and bluntly, like we did for ozone-depleting gases. It’s like comparing a gas leak in your kitchen with the functioning of your gas stove. Sure, they’re connected, but you don’t solve your cooking problems by stopping a gas leak and still letting your oven break down.
Climate scientists only regard climate change (from fossil fuels) as something that biodiversity is dependent upon, because of the prevailing linear view that impacts from carbon are all-encompassing. This isn’t true. Stable carbon processes are necessary for life. Simply increasing carbon-biodiversity storage through tree-planting, or reducing fossil fuel burning, won’t solve the bigger biodiversity problem.
Where the stable functioning of our planet and human survival is concerned, climate stability is supported by biodiversity processes. This distinction, albeit subtle, is vitally important because the killing of animals destabilises everything. Climate, soil, water … all processes that deliver our essential life support. Irrespective of what climate scientists think they can do, the biodiversity crisis can only ever be fixed by starting to reverse the loss of 68% of all animals on Earth since 1950.
‘Climate change’ caused by over-consumption of fossil fuels has created a smoke-screen for the bigger biodiversity problem.
Climate stability versus climate change
There is much inconsistency in the way we interpret and communicate concepts like nature, biodiversity, ecosystems and climate. Throughout the Biodiversity and Climate Change IPBES-IPCC report, these expressions are used in different ways – biodiversity is often used in a way that implies number of species. That’s not what biodiversity is.
And the report thinks far too much in terms of carbon storage. Nature-based solutions are criticised by some, as the introduction of animals can result in carbon storage reduction but that’s not systems thinking. Reduction can be necessary as a step towards restoration but there are more processes at stake than just storage. Carbon and other cycles are processes we can’t live without.
Rather than think in terms of carbon storage, carbon emissions or number of animals, we could be thinking in terms of ecosystem stability, because chaotic ecosystems are actually the greatest threat to our survival.
Global food security, water and everything we rely on to avoid war, famine and disease is supplied by biodiversity. That doesn’t mean the number of species – herbivore-rich grasslands don’t stop wars but the ecosystem structures supported by grassland herbivores do help stop people starving to death. It’s the innumerable processes that abundant animal life of all shapes and sizes deliver at every spatial scale across planet Earth, that makes it habitable for humans.
If one applies this definition and accepts animals are essential for climate stability, the IPBES – IPCC problem present itself differently.
- It becomes clear that it’s a lot easier to reduce fossil fuel burning than to regrow billions of tonnes of diverse animal biomassThe weight of living organisms. Biomass can be measured in relation to the amount of carbon, the dry weight (with all moisture removed) or living weight. In general it can be used to describe the volume of energy that is contained inside systems, as the size of animals relates to their metabolism and therefore, how much energy they contain and More – instantly we realise we have our priorities wrong.
- It simplifies the objective by taking the solution out of our hands and into the realms of nature restoration, which only animals can do for us.
The importance of wildlife in simplifying complex biodiversity climate problems
The report refers to the biodiversity-climate dilemma as a ‘complex problem’ but it’s actually a simple problem with a potentially elegant solution – to rebuild wildlife populations, while reducing fossil fuel dependence.
Everything always appears too complex when we try to describe ecosystem connectivity, or where politics is allowed to invade the space. Only abundant animals can rebuild ecosystems and the outcomes are so complex, we can’t ever precisely describe them. Indeed, the report recognises this, saying ‘It is the nature of complex systems that they have unexpected outcomes and thresholds’. So, there is in actual fact, no point in trying to understand why a system works. Our focus needs to be on recreating the animal-led structures that can most rapidly reverse the problem.
The one thing we can be certain about, is how returning to abundant wildlife in the right proportions, will stabilise ecosystems faster than anything we can do on our own. And the only way this can be done is experimentally and locally, by empowering self-determined community initiatives, allowing nature to take its course and restocking ecosystems with wildlife and then seeing what happens.
A lot of this is in accordance with key principles that the Biodiversity and Climate Change IPBES-IPCC report describes among its 41 findings. In that respect, the report presents a useful amalgamation of ideas, much of which is already being delivered on the ground in conservation development programs worldwide.
A working strategy based on animal impact
The Biodiversity and Climate Change IPBES-IPCC report lists important core fundamentals of sustainable development but misses the singular most important one – the single importance of wildlife for ecosystem stability. It’s staggering that the words ‘animal’ or ‘wildlife’ don’t appear once in the entire summary. In the main report, they are mostly referred to the impact of climate change on animals and the ability of animals to build resilienceReferring to an ecosystem’s ability to maintain a steady stable-state. The need to build resilience is entirely anthropocentric and symptomatic of ecosystems that are damaged or declining, leading to loss of ecosystem services on which humans depend. More against climate change – but not as independently and overwhelmingly critical!
The fundamental fact is that animals are key to stable ecosystems and a habitable planet. This one omission is what renders the findings confusing and somewhat incoherent.
Until there is wide-scale acceptance that restoring wildlife populations is the only solution to humanity’s greatest threats, we will continue to deliver half-baked outcomes that aren’t fit for our survival.
A more appropriate content for the report would have been to recognise that:
- Climate stability is a product of biodiversity.
- Biodiversity is a product of stable ecosystem structures, functions and processes.
- Ecosystem structures, functions and processes are the products of animal impact.
- Fossil fuel burning creates climate chaos(Of energy and ecosystems). Ecosystems are thermodynamically driven. Disorder occurs when energy dissipates and becomes more chaotic. For example, the release of hot air into the atmosphere results in that energy is freer to disperse (maximum entropy). The opposite is true when energy is locked into biological processes, when it is stored inside molecules (minimum entropy). Stability in ecosystems occurs More and kills animals.
Therefore:
- If you have stable ecosystems and rampant fossil fuel burning, Earth warms and it causes climate chaos, leading to extinction and loss of biodiversity.
- Biodiversity creates all means of life support including climate stability.
- Biodiversity is not dependent on reducing fossil fuel use and fossil fuel use cannot be maintained by increasing biodiversity.
- The only way to address runaway climate change is to stop burning fossil fuels.
- The only way to address biodiversity is to rebuild wildlife populations.
Spotlight
Animals and the zoogeochemistry of the carbon cycle
Emerging ecological theory predicts that wild animals stand
to play an important role in mediating these biogeochemical processes. Furthermore, many animal species roam widely across landscapes,
creating a spatial dynamism that could regulate spatial patterning of vegetation biomass and carbon uptake and soil carbon retention.
G7 Leaders commit to the global mission to halt and reverse biodiversity loss by 2030.
We will act now, building on the G7 Metz Charter on Biodiversity and the Leaders’ Pledge for Nature, championing their delivery, to help set the necessary trajectory for nature to 2030. Global system-wide change is required: our world must not only become net zero, but also nature
positive. Read more …
