ABSTRACT
Action to foster biodiversity is urgently needed, and that requires politicians – and thus the wider public – to understand the significance of the changes taking place. This can be a complex message to communicate. The issue is not whether it is worth conserving a charismatic mammal or whether it matters if a few nematodes become extinct: it needs to be far more widely understood that declines in individual species herald the decline of diversity in whole ecosystems, which, in turn, has implications for human survival
