ABSTRACT
The precise nature of biodiversity will be critiqued throughout this chapter. For now it can be taken to be a measure of the abundance of species in a given area. In 1992, leaders of 183 countries pledged under the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) to reduce the rate of biodiversity loss by 2010. There was an acceptance that biodiversity loss cannot be reversed in the near future, but the hope was to slow down the rate of loss. Unfortunately, these good intentions seem to have been insufficient: a recent report compiling a group of 31 indicators of biodiversity concludes ‘at the global scale it is highly unlikely the 2010 target has been met’ (Butchart et al. 2010: 1168). In other words, the rate of loss has not been reduced, and in some cases has accelerated. Such statistics have led some scientists (Simpson 2002) to label this time as the sixth period of mass extinction of the planet. The loss of biodiversity raises important questions for life on the planet:
How bad is the current rate of biodiversity loss?
Is the loss of biodiversity a risk to human life?
If biodiversity is to be preserved, where should this happen? And who should pay?
What is the economic value of biodiversity?
How is biodiversity linked to poverty?
