Why does Biodiversity matter?
Biodiversity is important because it controls processes that regulate climate change. A biosphere crisis is systemic and requires a whole system, holistic approach to mitigation and adaptation. The IPCC Intergovernmental Platform on Climate Change and IPBES Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services stated, it is impossible to solve the climate change emergency without solving the biodiversity crisis. Climate change and biodiversity are interrelated and it’s not enough just to eliminate fossil fuels.
British Columbia currently has 1,807 species of animals and plants at risk of extinction, more than any other province or territory.
Legislation in the U.S. brought about the Endangered Species Act and the National and Environmental Policy Act as essential tools for the American public to keep industry accountable. During the era when these acts were being developed, the B.C. timber industry and forest professionals actively lobbied to block this from happening here. Since 1995, the policy direction has been to limit the impact of biodiversity conservation on timber supply across the province to just 4%.
B.C. just announced that it would scrap the “unduly reduce the supply of timber from British Columbia’s forests.” The infamous clause, written into B.C.’s Forest Range and Practices Act was recognized as a barrier to protecting forests and their biodiversity.
Conservation science provides us with a general risk rating, telling us that if we retain 70% or more of the natural abundance of forest with old trees the risk of species loss and losing ecosystem resilience is low. If we retain below 30%, the risk is high.
Maintaining diversity at multiple scales offers the best insurance for forests facing an uncertain climate future. Biodiversity, including genetic diversity, determines the range of adaptive capacities available to an ecosystem, thereby increasing resiliency. Biodiversity has intrinsic value and there is also increasing evidence that diverse, intact species assemblages underpin ecosystem functions such as tree productivity, nutrient cycling, seed dispersal, pollination, water uptake and pest resistance that are critical for human well-being.
qathet Old Growth submitted a letter:
With the ongoing sixth mass species extinction, science is suggesting that around 1 million species already face extinction within decades unless action is taken to reduce the intensity of drivers of biodiversity loss. Without action, there will be a further acceleration of species extinction, which is already a hundred times higher than it averaged over the past 10 million years.
The main driver according to studies is habitat destruction. Preventing degradation of habitats is the most effective way to conserve biodiversity to help threatened species from not becoming extinct. Beyond outright forest clearance, forest degradation from logging is the most pervasive threat facing species inhabiting intact forests.
Studies across many taxonomic groups have shown impacts increasing with the intensity of logging and with the number of times a forest has been logged. Forestry causes the largest losses of biological diversity across the province, virtually everywhere that it’s practiced. We are already in a time of crisis because the guidance for managing old growth forests was not fully implemented from 30 years ago.
Coastal bears require large, hollow, old-growth trees to provide the winter dens where they can hibernate and give birth to their cubs. The plight of coastal black bears is one of the reasons that it is so urgent to protect our most productive old-growth forests. Once lost from the landscape, these giant trees and the habitat they provide will take centuries to return - if they’re ever given the chance
A majority of government scientists (71%) have witnessed a decrease in research capacity and are concerned about the potential effects of research and decision-making being increasingly outsourced to external professionals. The risks of conflicts of interest, which arise when professionals are employed by the same industry the government is required to regulate. Around half (49%) of government scientists surveyed across Ministries believe that political interference is compromising their ministry’s ability to develop laws, policies and programs based on scientific evidence.
An independent scientists’ report shows in detail how little is left of B.C.’s most endangered old-growth forests, in particular those with very big trees - only about three percent remain today (approximately 35,000 hectares). The authors also found that many old-growth management areas, created to protect old-growth forests, do not actually contain old forest. In the last 100 years of industrial logging, we’ve lost almost all of the old-growth forests with big trees that have existed for thousands of years.
Conflicting portrayals of remaining old growth: the British Columbia case
Forest professionals are failing to address the Climate and Biodiversity Crises. The Code of Ethical & Professional Conduct states, “Registrants exhibit objectivity and are professionally independent in fact and appearance, and must: uphold the public interest and professional principles above the demands of employment or personal gain.” Nothing could be more important and essential to upholding the public interest than acting to reduce greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere and to slow loss of biodiversity.
Plantation forests, which are bred for performance to a large degree as measured in seed orchards typically focus on growth rate, rather than drought, disease, pathogen resistance and defence against herbivores. If habitats collapse or shift so must species. To survive they need corridors and alternatives to find new habitats. The thresholds they will have to cross in the coming years have serious implications for their survival and the degree to which they will be affected by climate change will depend on three factors: the stability of their regional biomes, their size and the degree to which they are biologically isolated.
Fragmentation of intact forest blocks (and associated edge effects) is a severe threat to forest-dependent species, especially those requiring large areas to maintain viable populations (for example, wide-ranging predators and tree species that occur naturally at very low densities). Some forest species may persist for a time in degraded fragments, but intact forests are necessary to ensure their persistence over the long term. More forest-dependent species are found in intact ecosystems than degraded ones. The loss of large contiguous tracts of forest has meant wide-ranging forest-dependent species have either retreated to the last remaining intact forest systems or are extinct.
Trees undergo somatic genetic mutations throughout their lifetime, rather than just between generations. They are adapting to changing environments in real time. Individual trees accumulate genetic diversity over their lifetime. Old growth trees (and thus forests) based on age alone have more genetic diversity within the trees than a younger forest (planted or otherwise). They have a greater adaptive potential.
The Government’s acknowledgement of the importance of Biodiversity has been apparent through its participation in such things as the United Nations Biodiversity Convention and the Canadian Biodiversity Strategy. Despite the B.C. government’s decades-long objective to conserve biodiversity, and commitments made on the national and international stage, the biological diversity of our province is in decline. An Audit of Biodiversity in BC found that the provincial government is not doing enough to address this loss and not fully implementing or monitoring its habitat-protection tools.
BC has legislation that includes provisions for key components of Biodiversity through the Ministry of Environment Act, Wildlife Act, Forest and Range Practises Act, Oil and Gas Activities Act, Fish Protection Act, Land Act, Park Act, Environment and Land Use Act, Ecological Reserve Act. And currently, 37% of British Columbia’s land-base has one or more biodiversity conservation designations associated with it in Ecological Reserves, Parks, Conservation Lands, Wildlife Habitat Areas, Ungulate Winter Ranges and Special Conservation Areas.
But the parks and protected area system has not been designed to ensure ecological integrity and are too small to ensure their ecological viability by not being adequately connected to other protected areas. Parts of B.C. have never been surveyed for species distribution and where they have, is now decades out of date.
Mycologist Paul Stamets thinks saving Old Growth forests should be a matter of national defence and states why nature dwelling fungi should be used in an ecologically intelligent manner. The Agarikon has been used by humans for over 2000 years as medicine. “When we cut down the old-growth forests, we are potentially losing genomic libraries that could have a strain of fungi that could have enormous implications for human biosecurity, and moreover, habitat health”.
As the government continues to decimate ancient old-growth forests of the Pacific Northwest—a habitat that agarikon calls home, Stamets is working hard to find, clone, and culture specimens and rescue them from destruction. So far, he’s secured around 65 strains. This mushroom harbours molecules that could help to protect us against increasingly common chronic diseases, as well as threatening pathogens.
The future of the world's flora may depend as much, if not more, on what's below the ground as what's above. Beneath 90% of all plants lies an invisible support system—subterranean fungal partners that form a network of filaments connecting plants and bringing nutrients and water to their roots. In return, the plants provide a steady supply of carbon to the fungi.
Now, researchers are learning that these hidden partners can shape how ecosystems respond to climate change. Mycorrhizal associations are arguably the most important symbioses in terrestrial ecosystems because of their importance for plant productivity. SPUN is a science-based initiative to map fungal networks and advocate for their protection. They aim to accelerate efforts to protect underground ecosystems largely absent from conservation and climate agendas. In 2012 for the first time in the world, the protection of fungi is included in the legislation of a country.
Satellites and aircraft with sophisticated sensors can track signs of ecosystem health known as essential biodiversity variables (EBVs) drawing on multiple types of remote sensing data. With species distributions and abundances changing faster than ground-based surveys can track, because of climate change and human activities, satellite data can track processes that also contribute to an ecosystem’s overall health and productivity. We have the technology to provide meaningful data and informed decision making at regional levels. Priorities just need to change. Big Picture on Biodiversity