Today, May 22th, is the International Day for Biodiversity. This special day has been created by the United Nations to increase the understanding and awareness of biodiversity issues after the writing of the Convention for Biological Diversity. The theme of this year is "Mainstreaming biodiversity, sustaining people and their livelihoods".
It does not matter if you live in the city or the countryside, along the sea or in the middle of mountains; biodiversity is everywhere; but what is it exactly?

What biodiversity is

If we take the definition given by the article 2 of the Convention on Biological Diversity (which is the long name for Biodiversity), "it means the variability among living organisms from all sources including, inter alia, terrestrial, marine and other aquatic ecosystems and the ecological complexes of which they are part; this includes diversity within species, between species and of ecosystems". It can be resumed as every living organism and the interaction between each other.

Why biodiversity is important

It is boosting the ecosystems productivity and, besides of being the web of life, it helps us in a lot of ways, giving us a lot of wonderful free gifts. Thanks to biodiversity, the ecosystems can provide us "services" like pollination, seeds dispersal or even water purification. This is, in the end, giving us food, drinking water, medicine (more than 75% of our medicine is coming from plants.) and clear air to breath - so exactly what we need for a healthy life. Biodiversity is even giving us more, natural resources are an economic power with all the jobs and money that it creates. In a non human-centered position, every organism has a functional role in an ecosystem and it is all linked even if, sometimes, we do not see the direct link.

Causes of biodiversity loss

If the Convention for Biological Diversity exists, it is because biodiversity is today threatened. And this is mostly because of human activities. Today, to speak only about species, more than 10 000 go extinct every year. The extinction phenomenon is a natural event but today it is going faster than ever. Let us have a look at what are the causes of this loss of biodiversity. The first component of this loss of biodiversity is the fact that the population is growing and it affects the resources consumption. The growth of the population is leading to an overexploitation of the natural resources and, to give examples, to overfishing or over hunting that can make some species disappear. With the deforestation or the opening of some lands for agricultural use, species are suffering from habitat loss and the ecosystems will have to be modified, or will disappear.

Another consequence of human activities is climate change and global warming. With this change in their environment, many of the species will have to move to new places (and leave the ecosystem they are part of) or try to adapt themselves, but many will not be able to and will slowly become extinct. This can be linked to pollution too that is affecting the biodiversity because it disrupts the ecosystems.

The last major threat that is highlighted in the Convention is concerning the invasive alien species. They are species that were not part of a particular ecosystem and that are introduced in it, mostly by men's action. This event can have huge consequences on the biodiversity. For example, if the newly introduced species does not have predators in the ecosystem, it could be difficult to control its growth and it can take over other species and disrupt the ecosystem too. This happened a lot when some insects for example are annoying to human activities and they decide to introduce another species to eat the insect; most of the time the introduced species will multiply without possible control.

What you can do

Now that we have seen what are the possible threats affecting the biodiversity, can we do something at our personal level, to preserve it? Yes, we can!
Here are several tips to lower your negative impact on the loss of biodiversity:
Concerning food: you can be a critical consumer and ask yourself where your food comes from. It is better to buy local food, and grown without pesticides. Especially when it is about seafood, try to buy sustainable seafood to not empty the oceans.
At home: you can apply the rule of the 3 Rs (reduce, reuse, recycle), you can buy cleaning products that are not bad for the environment, try to save energy every time you can. Also, if you are heating with wood, you can buy wood from sustainable forests and if you have a garden you can plant indigenous biodiversity so local plants
While travelling: you can look at the transport mode you use, avoid bad souvenirs that comes from animals (leather, horns etc.) And be aware of what you leave behind you. Avoid waste and if you find some you can even clean up.
Participation: you can vote for people that support the conservation of biodiversity, you can also advocate for biodiversity by getting involved in conservation groups or try to mobilise the civil society at a local level.

As you can see, there are many things you can do to protect biodiversity and for sure you will find many other ideas speaking with other people or going to events organized by your country, or local community in this day. Here is a link to find out what are the celebrations in your country:
https://www.cbd.int/idb/2016/celebrations/

You can also find more details on this topic in the Youth Guide to Biodiversity on this page:
http://www.fao.org/docrep/017/i3157e/i3157e00.htm

Before closing this article, check out this short animated video :

Sources:

Page for the International Day for Biodiversity: https://www.cbd.int/idb/2016/default.shtml
Article 2 of the Convention on Biological Diversity: https://www.cbd.int/convention/articles/default.shtml?a=cbd-02
Article about extincted species: http://wwf.panda.org/about_our_earth/biodiversity/biodiversity/
More ideas about what you can do to save the biodiversitycan be find here: http://wwf.panda.org/about_our_earth/biodiversity/what_you_can_do/