BIODIVERSITY MATTERS
12 January 2004

According to Albaeco's editor, Dr. Fredrik Moberg, "Biodiversity will matter even more in the future". The World Conservation Union (IUCN) says island plant and animal species, which represent natural selection's most diverse and unique progeny, are the most endangered in the world.

According to Moberg, "On Hawaii, 85 plant species that are found nowhere else are in danger of extinction." Many contend that such insular ecosystems are irrelevant to the health of the world as a whole. But scientists estimate that 100 to 1,000 times as many species are falling into extinction than would without human influence.

The poorest among us "use dozens or even hundreds of species of wild and semi-domesticated plants and animals for food, medicine, fodder, energy, clean water, cash incomes, and insurance", but ecosystem integrity is essential for the wellbeing of all people. Global and local ecosystems support and maintain our economic and cultural life, and indeed their existence permits the formation of the natural world we know as the human habitat, capable of supporting and sustaining human life, in all its complexities. [Read Albaeco's SDU]

• Albaeco on Biodiversity at Ecovaria, Casavaria's ecology collection...