| Tayside Biodiversity - Action
Plan - Introduction To
Biodiversity |
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| WHAT IS BIODIVERSITY? |
Biodiversity is a fairly new
word to our language, but it is becoming more and more
commonly
used and understood. It simply signifies the variety
of life on earth in all its shapes and sizes – from
smallest insect and fungus to the largest mammal or
tree. In Scotland alone it is estimated there is something
in the order of 90,000 species; worldwide there could
be at least 30 million!
This massive variety of life is everywhere, not just in our countryside and gardens,
but also in our towns and cities. It is all encompassing – biodiversity
enriches all our lives, whether it’s a butterfly visiting our garden or
a blackbird heard from an office window. It is important to our health, in the
use of many species in our medicines and for the fact that it encourages us to
take exercise in our surroundings, be it walking or gardening. It is therapeutic
too – it has been found that a view of nature from a hospital bed speeds
up recovery from operations.
Biodiversity contributes to our overall economy by supplying the raw materials
for our clothing, food, drink, fuel, building sand roads. Tourism based on wildlife
is one of Scotland’s major income-earners. Environment-based jobs include
farming,
fishing and services providing water, energy and building materials. |
“Biodiversity
encompasses the whole variety of life, it is all
living things,from the tiny garden to
the giant redwood tree. You will find biodiversityeverywhere,
in window boxes and wild woods, roadsides and rain
forests,snow field and seashore.”
The UK Steering
Group Report 1995IS |
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| OUR BIODIVERSITY THREATENED? |
Our
biodiversity is under threat globally, nationally
and locally.
In the last hundred years at least 100 species have
become extinct in Britain alone. This figure palls
into
insignificance when we consider that the present
extinction rate is up to 10,000 times higher than
that in prehistoric times. It has been estimated
that globally we are currently losing up to 50,000
species every single year – that is 137 a day
- 6 each and every hour! If human activity continues
to expand at current rates, at least 20% of all species
will have disappeared in less than thirty years’ time.
The
statistics are compelling. A recent study estimates
that if every person in the world consumed as much
as the average person in the high-income countries
of the West, we would need three more Earths to sustain
us. So our goal of sustainable development cannot
be the continuation and expansion of such intensive
use of our natural resources.
In Scotland, we have
lost 99% of our ancient pinewoods and 90% of our
raised bogs; in Tayside we have lost 35% of ourheather
moorland. A quarter of Scotland’s flowering
plants have become rarer and a third of all bird
species recorded in Scotland have been found to be
in need of special conservation action. The water
vole is very nearly extinct in our area– nationally
only 2% of its original population remains. Many
of our valuable habitats, such as unimproved grasslands
and wet woodlands, are at risk of serious damage
or loss.
Occasionally a natural process threatens
the
existence of a species or habitat, but in the majority
of cases it is the way we use our natural resources
that is the main problem. Although we have little
understanding of what the components of our complex
web of life are, we know that as a whole they have
made it possible for our species to survive. This
web is inherently fragile and the way we act affects
our part in it, as well as the web itself. We need
to consider new optionson how to safeguard both our
local and global biodiversity to ensure quality of
life not just for ourselves and future generations,
but also for the other species with which we share
the planet. The earth is, after all, the only home
we have.
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