All the Little Animals

Reaping the benefits of biodiversity

In the 1992 movie “Medicine Man,” Sean Connery plays a doctor who’s discovered a cancer cure deep in the Amazon rainforest. Clearing of the forest threatens the rare ant species the medicine is synthesized from. It’s a movie, but there is plenty true to life in it. We have biodiversity to thank for providing many natural medicines, including around 70% of our cancer drugs. Four in five people worldwide rely on natural remedies for everyday ailments. On the flip side, loss of natural habitats and biodiversity has led to the spread of zoonotic diseases to humans, including Covid-19. It may seem like that butterfly flapping its wings thousands of miles away doesn’t affect us, but that misses all the many benefits of biodiversity.

Natural Remedies

We’ve delved into the wonders a little forest bathing can do for a person. It’s not just the plants that help humans lead healthier lives. It’s the animals too, even ones we rarely see and wouldn’t be able to identify.

“Microbes discovered in the soil of Rapa Nui (Easter Island) fight heart disease by lowering cholesterol, the UN reports. “AZT, one of the first anti-HIV/AIDS drugs, came from a large shallow-water sponge that lives in the Caribbean, and happens to be the same sponge that yielded antivirals to treat herpes and serves as the source for the first marine-derived anti-cancer drug to be licensed in the U.S.”

Ziconotide, a drug 1,000 times more potent than morphine but without the addictive properties of opioids, derives from marine cone snails. The coral reefs they live on are disappearing as the world’s ocean waters warm.

As widening urban sprawl contributes to deforestation, humans encounter new pathogens our immune systems are not prepared for. This is how HIV and Ebola entered human pathology. We also lose biodiversity that way, with species on animals dependent on those natural environments disappearing. This takes away unseen benefits to humans, as people who live in richly biodiverse areas have fewer allergies and chronic inflammatory diseases than others. We’re losing a lot of species, with a million facing the threat of extinction and extinction rates at 1,000 times their natural pace.

In so many unseen ways, these species keep us healthy, which makes us happy. The benefits of biodiversity are worth hanging onto.

Birds & Bees

From the exotic to the everyday, biodiversity supports life and, just as importantly, quality of life.

“Biodiversity is fundamental to the physical and mental well-being of not only humans but all of species on Earth — because when we lose biodiversity, we are losing key cogs that support high-quality air, water, soil, food, and more,” Liz Willetts, a consultant to the  UN’s Convention on Biological Diversity, said. “These habitats also provide opportunities for physical activity, calm places to help relieve stress, nutritious food and clean water, and additional significant health benefits.”

We reap the benefits of biodiversity in four main areas: provisioning, regulating, culture, and support. We get what we need to sustain life from nature. The food we eat and the water we drink are natural, and they’re part of a long chain of biodiversity, even if we don’t encounter them until they’re on a shelf or behind a counter in the grocery store. We shelter ourselves with natural materials, even if we’re not living in a cabin in the woods we built with our bare hands.

Plants and animals both visible and invisible play crucial roles in keeping air and water clean and keeping our bodies’ internal systems running smoothly. Biodiversity in ecosystems can help them bounce back from weather disasters quickly, filtering water and mitigating storm damage.

Access to green space has benefits for physical, mental, and spiritual well-being that we’re only beginning to measure, especially for city-dwellers. Further back in human history, the diversity of plant and animal life around us makes up mythology in every culture and enhance our understanding of our place in the cosmos.

Pollinators such as bees and butterflies play such an important role in the building blocks of biodiversity that we owe a sizable chunk of the food we eat, clothes we wear, and the buildings that shelter us to them. Without the benefits of biodiversity, there is no human life as we know it.

Action Plan

The Convention on Biological Diversity has adopted the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, with four overarching goals for 2050. They are: to take urgent action to halt human-induced species extinction, the sustainable use of biodiversity, equitable sharing of benefits, and on implementation and finance to include closing the biodiversity finance gap of $700 billion per year.

“Among the twenty-three targets to be achieved by 2030 include 30% conservation of land, sea and inland waters, 30% restoration of degraded ecosystems, halving the introduction of invasive species, and $500 billion/year reduction in harmful subsidies,” according to the UN Environment Programme.

In key areas, Willetts said, there are simple improvements that organizations and governments can make to conserve biodiversity that will prevent environmental degradation, promote public health, and prevent disease. In the aggregate, these simple fixes can create positive impacts at the regional and global levels. With nearly 200 countries committed to the global framework, these changes are starting to happen.

“By 2050,” the framework’s designers hope, the effects are such that “biodiversity is valued, conserved, restored and wisely used, maintaining ecosystem services, sustaining a healthy planet, and delivering benefits essential for all people.”

Then, we can all enjoy the benefits of biodiversity for ages to come.