Biodiversity

What is biodiversity?

Biodiversity is defined as “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.” Basically biodiversity refers to all the variety of life that can be found on Earth, this includes plants, animals, fungi and micro-organisms.

How can humans increase biodiversity?  

We can help in increasing and conserving our Earth’s biodiversity in many ways. We can:
– Eradicate and control introduced weeds. Keep vehicles on main roads to reduce the spread of weeds and disturbance to wildlife.
– Leave native plants undisturbed.
-Maintain old standing dead trees. Large dead trees provide nests foro many species.
– Use environmentally friendly products.
– Recycle, reuse and reduce.
-Drive less, walk or ride more.

More ways to help in Biodiversity Conservation can be found at: https://www.naturetrust.bc.ca/conserving-land/what-can-we-do

Should humans try to increase biodiversity or should they let nature exist without our inteference? 

With many recent problems with biodiversity and the environment in general, with human made problems such as global warming and climate change, it is clear that many actions by humans are causing a decrease in biodiversity. So this definitely is a reason for us humans to try and increase the biodiversity. If we let nature exist without interference in its current state, it could just get progressively worse than better, so it is much better for us to do something rather than nothing.

Who makes the decisions about how much humans should interfere? 

There is not really a huge organisation that makes decisions on how much us humans should interfere with the biodiversity of our Earth, that is totally up for us to decide, whether we want to help the problems of biodiversity that are currently occurring, or whether we decide to totally ignore the problems and go on with our daily lives, however there are people out there who have decided to make recommendations on what we should be doing and how we can help.

There are many people who care about our planet and are trying to raise awareness as well as spread factual information, organisations such as WHO (World Health Organisation) have a whole page dedicated to biodiversity. There are many other types of small websites that are doing their own part in spreading awareness on the biodiversity of our earth. It is important for these organisations to be spreading proper, factual information on biodiversity as, if it were to become a large problem in the future, people would know the correct information and they would not be believing fake news and false information.

What technologies are used to monitor and improve our natural areas?  

There are many technologoies that are used to conserve our biodiversity by monitoring and improving our natural areas. Some of these technologies include:

• Camera Traps – remote cameras that take photos when a sensor is triggered by movement, an image is sent to the operator. This lets researchers document the presence of many wildlife species.
• Bioacoustic Monitoring Devices – Acoustic sensors are similar to camera traps but instead of taking photos, it records the presence of animals through their sounds 24/7, the cost of this system is low cost as well.
• Aerial Imagery – With sensors, satellites or anything inbetween, aerial imagery can be created. Online mapping and data sharing are easy ways of seeing the landscape, this gives us a rough idea of where most animals will be located.
• Software Apps – Apps may be able to enhance real data with augmented reality may increase empathy for wildlife among many people.