Humans have overfished the ocean, cleared forests, polluted water and created a climate crisis by burning fossil fuels. These actions are affecting biodiversity around the world, from remote islands to our own backyards.
Biodiversity can refer to all the different kinds of life that can be found in just one area of the world, or the teeming variety of animals, plants, fungi and microorganisms like bacteria that comprise all life on Earth. In either case, each species collaborates in ecosystems to generate everything in nature that we need to survive: food, clean water, clean air, medicine and shelter – these are what scientists call “ecosystem services”.
