The natural environment provides the basic conditions without which humanity could not survive.
Life on the blue planet is contained within the biosphere, a thin and irregular envelope around
the Earth’s surface, just a few kilometres deep around the radius of the globe. Here, ecosystems
purify the air and the water that are the basis of life. They stabilise and moderate the Earth’s
climate. Soil fertility is renewed, nutrients are cycled and plants are pollinated.
Although scientists are now able to appreciate the complexity of this web of interacting
natural processes, we are still a very long way from understanding how they all fit together.
What we do know is that if any part of the web suffers breaks down, the future of life on the
planet will be at risk.
Biological diversity – the variability of life on Earth – is the key to the ability of the biosphere
to continue providing us with these ecological goods and services and thus is our species’ life
assurance policy.
However, as a species we are degrading, and in some cases destroying, the ability of biological
diversity to continue performing these services. The 20th century saw a fourfold increase in
human numbers and an eighteen-fold growth in world economic output. With these came
unsustainable patterns of consumption and the use of environmentally unsound technologies.
There are now more than six billion of us and we are placing unprecedented strains on the
planet’s ability to cope. Worse, the fruits of this growth are extremely unequally divided.
Whilst some enjoy better standards of living than at any time in history, nearly half the world’s
population is unjustifiably poor, making do on less than $2 a day. Worse still, the poor suffer
disproportionately from the damage done to the environment.
In the 21st century, we will stand or fall on our ability to collectively eradicate poverty,
guarantee human rights and ensure an environmentally sustainable future. Freedom from want,
freedom from fear and sustaining our future are all part of the same equation.
The world community has recognised this. Over the last ten years the United Nations has
convened a series of summit meetings and negotiations to adopt legal instruments and
programmes for action on key issues: education, the rights of children, environment and
development, human rights, population and development, social development, the
advancement of women, human settlements and food security. The legal and policy
instruments are, by and large, in place. What is needed now is to ensure that they are
implemented.
The Convention on Biological Diversity is one of these instruments. The Convention was
opened for signature at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in
Rio de Janeiro in June 1992. It came into force at the end of 1993 and has now been ratified by
the overwhelming majority of countries, for whom it is now a legally binding commitment to
conserve biological diversity, to sustainably use its components and to share equitably the
benefits arising from the use of genetic resources.

Biological diversity – or biodiversity – is the term given to
the variety of life on Earth and the natural patterns it forms.
The biodiversity we see today is the fruit of billions of years
of evolution, shaped by natural processes and, increasingly,
by the influence of humans. It forms the web of life of
which we are an integral part and upon which we so fully
depend.
This diversity is often understood in terms of the wide
variety of plants, animals and microorganisms. So far, about
1.75 million species have been identified, mostly small
creatures such as insects. Scientists reckon that there are
actually about 13 million species, though estimates range
from 3 to 100 million.
Biodiversity also includes genetic differences within each
species – for example, between varieties of crops and breeds
of livestock. Chromosomes, genes, and DNA – the building
blocks of life – determine the uniqueness of each individual
and each species.
Yet another aspect of biodiversity is the variety of
ecosystems such as those that occur in deserts, forests,
wetlands, mountains, lakes, rivers, and agricultural
landscapes. In each ecosystem, living creatures, including
humans, form a community, interacting with one another
and with the air, water, and soil around them.

We Are Changing Life on Earth

The rich tapestry of life on our planet is the outcome of over 3.5 billion years of evolutionary history. It has been shaped by forces such as changes in the planet's crust, ice ages, fire, and interaction among species. Now, it is increasingly being altered by humans. From the dawn of agriculture, some 10,000 years ago, through the Industrial Revolution of the past three centuries, we have reshaped our landscapes on an ever-larger and lasting scale. We have moved from hacking down trees with stone tools to literally moving mountains to mine the Earth's resources. Old ways of harvesting are being replaced by more intensive technologies, often without controls to prevent over-harvesting. For example, fisheries that have fed communities for centuries have been depleted in a few years by huge, sonar-guided ships using nets big enough to swallow a dozen jumbo jets at a time. By consuming ever more of nature's resources, we have gained more abundant food and better shelter, sanitation, and health care, but these gains are often accompanied by increasing environmental degradation that may be followed by declines in local economies and the societies they supported.

In 1999, the world's population hit 6 billion. United Nations experts predict the world will have to find resources for a population of 9 billion people in 50 years. Yet our demands on the world's natural resources are growing even faster than our numbers: since 1950, the population has more than doubled, but the global economy has quintupled. And the benefits are not equally spread: most of the economic growth has occurred in a relatively few industrialized countries.

At the same time, our settlement patterns are changing our relationship with the environment. Nearly half the world's people live in towns and cities. For many people, nature seems remote from their everyday lives. More and more people associate food with stores, rather than with their natural source.

The value of biodiversity

Protecting biodiversity is in our self-interest. Biological resources are the pillars upon which we build civilizations. Nature's products support such diverse industries as agriculture, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, pulp and paper, horticulture, construction and waste treatment. The loss of biodiversity threatens our food supplies, opportunities for recreation and tourism, and sources of wood, medicines and energy. It also interferes with essential ecological functions.

Our need for pieces of nature we once ignored is often important and unpredictable. Time after time we have rushed back to nature's cupboard for cures to illnesses or for infusions of tough genes from wild plants to save our crops from pest outbreaks. What's more, the vast array of interactions among the various components of biodiversity makes the planet habitable for all species, including humans. Our personal health, and the health of our economy and human society, depends on the continuous supply of various ecological services that would be extremely costly or impossible to replace. These natural services are so varied as to be almost infinite. For example, it would be impractical to replace, to any large extent, services such as pest control performed by various creatures feeding on one another, or pollination performed by insects and birds going about their everyday business.

"Goods and Services" provided by ecosystems include:

• Provision of food, fuel and fibre
• Provision of shelter and building materials
• Purification of air and water
• Detoxification and decomposition of wastes
• Stabilization and moderation of the Earth's climate
• Moderation of floods, droughts, temperature extremes and the forces of wind
• Generation and renewal of soil fertility, including nutrient cycling
• Pollination of plants, including many crops
• Control of pests and diseases
• Maintenance of genetic resources as key inputs to crop varieties and livestock breeds, medicines, and other products
• Cultural and aesthetic benefits
• Ability to adapt to change

Biodiversity under threat

When most people think of the dangers besetting the natural world, they think of the threat to other creatures. Declines in the numbers of such charismatic animals as pandas, tigers, elephants, whales, and various species of birds, have drawn world attention to the problem of species at risk. Species have been disappearing at 50-100 times the natural rate, and this is predicted to rise dramatically. Based on current trends, an estimated 34,000 plant and 5,200 animal species - including one in eight of the world's bird species - face extinction. For thousands of years we have been developing a vast array of domesticated plants and animals important for food. But this treasure house is shrinking as modern commercial agriculture focuses on relatively few crop varieties. And, about 30% of breeds of the main farm animal species are currently at high risk of extinction. While the loss of individual species catches our attention, it is the fragmentation, degradation, and outright loss of forests, wetlands, coral reefs, and other ecosystems that poses the gravest threat to biological diversity. Forests are home to much of the known terrestrial biodiversity, but about 45 per cent of the Earth's original forests are gone, cleared mostly during the past century. Despite some regrowth, the world's total forests are still shrinking rapidly, particularly in the tropics. Up to 10 per cent of coral reefs - among the richest ecosystems - have been destroyed, and one third of the remainder face collapse over the next 10 to 20 years. Coastal mangroves, a vital nursery habitat for countless species, are also vulnerable, with half already gone.

Global atmospheric changes, such as ozone depletion and climate change, only add to the stress. A thinner ozone layer lets more ultraviolet-B radiation reach the Earth's surface where it damages living tissue. Global warming is already changing habitats and the distribution of species. Scientists warn that even a one-degree increase in the average global temperature, if it comes rapidly, will push many species over the brink. Our food production systems could also be seriously disrupted.

The loss of biodiversity often reduces the productivity of ecosystems, thereby shrinking nature's basket of goods and services, from which we constantly draw. It destabilizes ecosystems, and weakens their ability to deal with natural disasters such as floods, droughts, and hurricanes, and with human-caused stresses, such as pollution and climate change. Already, we are spending huge sums in response to flood and storm damage exacerbated by deforestation; such damage is expected to increase due to global warming.

The reduction in biodiversity also hurts us in other ways. Our cultural identity is deeply rooted in our biological environment. Plants and animals are symbols of our world, preserved in flags, sculptures, and other images that define us and our societies. We draw inspiration just from looking at nature's beauty and power. While loss of species has always occurred as a natural phenomenon, the pace of extinction has accelerated dramatically as a result of human activity. Ecosystems are being fragmented or eliminated, and innumerable species are in decline or already extinct. We are creating the greatest extinction crisis since the natural disaster that wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. These extinctions are irreversible and, given our dependence on food crops, medicines and other biological resources, pose a threat to our own well-being. It is reckless if not downright dangerous to keep chipping away at our life support system. It is unethical to drive other forms of life to extinction, and thereby deprive present and future generations of options for their survival and development.

Can we save the world's ecosystems, and with them the species we value and the other millions of species, some of which may produce the foods and medicines of tomorrow? The answer will lie in our ability to bring our demands into line with nature's ability to produce what we need and to safely absorb what we throw away.

Planet Earth is home to 8.7 million species, scientists estimate

Humans share the planet with as many as 8.7 million different forms of life, according to what is being billed as the most accurate estimate yet of life on Earth.

Researchers who have analysed the hierarchical categorisation of life on Earth to estimate how many undiscovered species exist say the diversity of life is not equally divided between land and ocean. Three-quarters of the 8.7m species – the majority of which are insects – are on land; only one-quarter, 2.2m, are in the deep, even though 70% of the Earth's surface is water.

The study, which is published in the journal PLoS Biology, underlines just how little humans know about what is out there – and which plants andanimals will become extinct before scientists can even record their existence.

"Scientists have been working on this question of how many species for so many years," said Dr Camilo Mora of the University of Hawaii and Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

The quest was growing increasingly urgent. "We know we are losing species because of human activity, but we can't really appreciate the magnitude of species lost until we know what species are there," he said.

An astonishing 86% of all plants and animals on land and 91% of those in the seas have yet to be named and catalogued, the study said.

The authors drew on the taxonomy, or categorisation system, devised byCarl Linnaeus about 250 years ago to arrive at their estimate of 8.7m – give or take 1.3m.

The Swedish biologist devised a hierarchical, tree-like structure where each individual species was classed in a series of progressively larger groups, culminating at the kingdom level. Thus a single species of hermit crab is classified in the decapod order, which belongs to the sub-phylum of crustaceans, the phylum of arthropods, and finally the animal kingdom.

The new Darwin Centre at the Natural History Museum, London. Photograph: Linda Nylind for the Guardian

The authors, in their analysis of existing data on 1.2m species, detected patterns between those hierarchical groupings which they could use to infer the existence of missing species that scientists have not yet described. That allowed them to use data from higher orders – such as anthropods, where there is a lot of data – to predict the number of creatures at the species level. Their estimate that the various forms of life on the planet included 7.8m species of animal, 298,000 species of plant and 611,000 species of mushrooms, mould and other fungi along with 36,400 species of protozoa, single-celled organisms, and 27,500 species of algae or chromists. The researchers did not venture to put an estimate on the number of bacteria.

Scientists have been trying to count and catalogue the living world for 250 years, since around the time when the Linnaeus devised his method of cataloging and naming living things. Current estimates range from 3m to 100m.

"It's not that we just don't know the names in the phone book. We don't know how big the phone book is," said Derek Tittensor, a co-author who works for the UN Environment Programme.

Robert May, a former UK government science adviser, acknowledged that this effort, like all those of its predecessors, was based on imperfect knowledge. But he said the study's conclusions were reasonable.

"It is sort of saying that the trunks and lower branches of the tree seem similar from group to group. At one end of the thing, you have birds and mammals that really are completely known. At the other end, you have just got a handful of branches and twigs. But if you do the big assumption the trees are similar, then it seems sensible."

The new estimate – like those that came before it – is unlikely to be the last word. There is still too much unknown to catalogue life, said Rob Dunn, author of Every Living Thing.

"What I almost guarantee will happen next is that someone will write a response saying that if you just change the parameters in such and such a way you will get fewer species, or you will get more species," he said.

"The truth is we are still so ignorant … There is still not a plot of tropical forest anywhere in the world that has been inventoried completely – not even a hectare."

Linnaeus, in his day, was confident he had captured the entire world of living things: he named about 10,000 species, most of which were confined to Europe.

More modern attempts to classify the living world have sought patterns from the size of living creatures, or their location. Were there more species in hot, tropical zones or in cooler areas? And what about the ocean depths? Others focused on the relationship between species.

In 1979, Terry Erwin, a carabidologist – beetle expert – at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, went out into the jungles of Panama, rolled some sheeting on the ground and sprayed several trees with pesticide.

He discovered the bodies of more than 1,100 new species of beetle from the canopy of a single type of tree.

There could be as many as 30m species of insects in tropical rainforests alone, calculated Erwin. The finding drew controversy, but Erwin defended his method against those in the latest study. "Virtually all of them are really measuring human activity," he said. "These guys base these on classification of animals, and classification of animals are human constructs. The reason it is predictable is that humans are predictable, especially in the scientific field. What they are measuring really is human activity. It is not real activity out in the wild."

He went on: "I was the first to use real critters, not some kind of limp arithmetic. I had to make some assumptions and came out with 30m. What it started was a kind of cottage industry of estimating everything on the planet."

However, Nigel Stork, a professor of environmental science at Griffith University, south-east Queensland, believes the current study appears to be closer towards an accurate count. "I think it's a landmark paper," he said, adding that advances in electronic lists of species gave the authors a fuller set of data to work from. "Too often in the past, they used limited data and extrapolated way beyond the realm of what you could extrapolate."

The authors note that identifying and describing new life forms is expensive and slow, especially when set against the magnitude of species yet to be found or catalogued.

Our Planet is full of With Life of millions of species

Barely 14% of creatures on Earth have been logged in central databases – just 9% of those in the seas, the study noted. And, according to David Kavanaugh, a beetle expert at the California Academy of Science, funding and other resources fall short of the task as research institutions are cutting back, and governments are more preoccupied with finding life on Mars than on Earth.

"The most frustrating this is to realise how little resources go into answering this question," he said. "One of those flights to Mars would fund us for decades in exploring life on this planet," he said. "It is very hard to get any money at all to go out, and yet they can go and blow up a rocket on a launch pad that would have funded my career and that of 100 others."

Most of those species waiting to be discovered will be small, and they are likely to be concentrated in remote areas or the depths of the ocean. But the authors said: "Many could be found literally in our own backyards."

But at the current pace, it would take 300,000 specialists 1,200 years to go through the laborious process of describing the new discoveries in scientific journals, and then entering them in electronic databases. "Describing species is a very time consuming process," said Tittensor. "Although it will be relatively straightforward to find a new species – there are millions of them out there – it is not necessarily an easy process to describe them in scientific literature."

Many of those species will be extinct before scientists have even registered their presence.

Discovering new species

Scientists and conservationists are regularly updating the inventory of life with the discovery of new species. Last week, scientists at the Smithsonian Institution reported the discovery of a primitive eel in a reef off the coast of the South Pacific island nation of Palau. The new species, Protoanguilla palau, bore little relation to 19 other forms of eel currently in existence and some of its characteristics – such as a second upper jaw – were more in line with fossils from 65m years ago.

Other recent highlights, as compiled by the International Institute for Species Exploration (IISE) at Arizona State University, include the eternal light mushroom, or Mycena luxaeterna, which emits bright yellowish light. The new species was collected from forests near Sao Paulo, Brazil. Another highlight was the golden spotted monitor lizard (Varanus bitatawa), a two-metre long beast discovered on Luzon Island in the Philippines. It has evaded earlier discovery by spending most of its time in the trees.

But most scientists expect the next rush of discovery to come from even smaller organisms, such as bacteria. The IISE also highlighted the discovery of a new bacteria growing on the shipwrecked hull of the Titanic. Halomonas titanicae is an iron oxide-eating bacteria, that could eventually eat the wreck up.

Strongest Creatures on Earth

Dung Beetle  A dung beetle is not only the world’s strongest insect but also the strongest animal on the planet compared to body weight. They can pull 1,141 times their own body weight. This is the equivalent of an average person pulling six double-decker buses full of people. Now that’s strong!

                                                       Picture: Dung Beetle and Rhinoceros Beetle

Rhinoceros Beetle  Rhinoceros Beetles can lift something 850 times their own weight. To put this into perspective, if a human had the strength of the rhinoceros beetle, it would be able to lift a 65 ton object. If the mighty elephant had equal strength to the rhinoceros beetle it would be able to carry 850 elephants on its back.

Leafcutter Ant Tiny leafcutter ants can lift and carry in their jaws something 50 times their own body weight of about 500mg. That’s the same as a human lifting a truck with its teeth.

African Elephant In brute strength, elephants are the strongest mammals and the strongest land animals. African elephants can weigh up to 6,350kg and they can carry up to 9,000kg, the weight of 130 adult humans.

Gorilla A gorilla can lift something 2,000kg (as heavy as 30 humans), over 10 times their body weight.

Tiger A tiger can carry something 550kg, twice its own body weight ten feet up a tree.

The world's largest known spider

The world's largest known spider is a male goliath bird-eating spider (Theraphosa blondi) collected by members of the Pablo San Martin Expedition at Rio Cavro, Venezuela in April 1965. It had a record leg-span of 28 cm (11 in) - sufficient to cover a dinner plate. This species is found in the coastal rainforests of Surinam, Guyana and French Guiana, but isolated specimens have also been reported from Venezuela and Brazil.

World Largest Spider

A two year old spider of the same species, bred by Robert Bustard and reared by Brian Burnett of Alyth, Perthshire also had a leg span of 28 cm (11 in) and weighed 170 g (6 oz) in February 1998.

Body length: 280 mm, Weight: 50 g, lifespan: 10 years, discovered: 1804.

• A tarantula’s venom, including that of the Goliath, is usually not lethal to humans, although the Goliath’s bite with its one-inch-long fangs can cause severe pain, nausea, and profuse sweating.
• Another serious weapon in a tarantula’s arsenal is its ability to release hairs (actually hairlike setae) from its body at any creature—including a human—it perceives as a threat. The tiny, almost invisible hairs that it voluntarily releases into the air are extremely irritating to skin, and can cause real problems if they get into delicate mucous membranes around eyes or mouth.
• The Goliath bird-eating tarantula makes noise—not with vocal cords like dogs, cats, birds, or humans—but by rubbing bristles on its legs together! This hissing noise called stridulation is loud enough to be heard up to 15 feet away.
• Tarantulas can be fearsome predators. Unlike some other spiders, they don’t weave intricate webs or leap great distances. Instead, they use stealth and strength to sneak up and pounce on unsuspecting victims, inflicting fatal bites with venomous fangs.
• Tarantulas don't have teeth for tearing and chewing their meals. They inject juices into their victims. These juices break down soft tissue so that the spider can slurp up its meal.
• Tarantulas eat insects, frogs, small snakes, lizards, and even rodents and bats. The Goliath bird-eating tarantula has been known to catch young birds. This is very rare but the behavior gave the spider its name.
• Some people in South America eat tarantulas—roasted!

Although fuzzy, tarantulas are not exactly warm, and because of their hair-flinging weaponry, huge fangs, and venom, many people fear them. Others, however, find them good pets.

The Smallest Bird In on Earth

The smallest bird is the bee hummingbird (Mellisuga helenae) of Cuba and the Isle of Youth. Males measure 57 mm (2.24 in) in total length, half of which is taken up by the bill and tail, and weigh 1.6 g (0.056 oz) Females are slightly larger.

This is believed to be the lowest weight limit for any warm blooded animal.

The Bee Hummingbird or Zunzuncito (Mellisuga helenae) is a species of hummingbird that is endemic to dense forests and woodland edges on the main island of Cuba and (formerly) on the Isla de la Juventud, also part of the nation of Cuba. With a mass of approximately 1.6–2 g (0.056–0.071 oz) and a length of 5–6 cm (2.0–2.4 in), it is the smallest living bird.

The male has the green pileum and fiery red throat, iridescent gorget with elongated lateral plumes, bluish upper-parts, and the rest of the underparts mostly greyish white. The male is smaller than the female. The female is green above, whitish below with white tips to the outer tail feathers. Compared to other small hummingbirds, which often have a slender appearance, the Bee Hummingbird looks rounded and chunky.

Female bee hummingbirds are bluish green with a pale gray underside. The tips of their tailfeathers have white spots. Breeding males have a reddish to pink head, chin, and throat. The female lays only two eggs at a time.

As the smallest bird in the world, it is no larger than a big insect and, as its name suggests, is scarcely larger than a bee. Like all hummingbirds, it is a swift, strong flier. It also can hover over one spot like a helicopter. The bee hummingbird beats its wings an estimated 80 times per second — so fast that the wings look like a blur to human eyes.

The brilliant, iridescent colors of the bee hummingbird's feathers make the bird seem like a tiny jewel. The iridescence is not always noticeable, but depends on the angle at which a person looks at the bird. The bird's slender, pointed bill is adapted for probing deep into flowers. The bee hummingbird feeds mainly on nectar, and an occasional insect or spider, by moving its tongue rapidly in and out of its mouth. In the process of feeding, the bird picks up pollen on its bill and head. When it flies from flower to flower, it transfers the pollen. In this way, it plays an important role in plant reproduction. In the space of one day the bee hummingbird may visit 1,500 flowers.^[4]

Using bits of cobwebs, bark, and lichen, the female bee hummingbird builds a cup-shaped nest that is only about 2.5 cm (1 inch) in diameter. Nests have been built on single clothespins. She lines the nest with soft plant fibers. In this nest she lays her eggs, which are no bigger than peas. She alone incubates the eggs and raises the young.