Biodiversity: An uncomfortable truth

From the desk of the emotional ecologist – 18/09/2024

https://www.youtube.com/@theemotionalecologist

Ladies and gentlemen, esteemed colleagues and friends, we are in need of a great debate about the future

On the 4th September, 2024, Dr Álvaro Fernández-Llamazares and his co-authors released an article in the prestigious scientific journal Nature, debunking a widely cited statistic that claims that 80% of Earths biodiversity is found within the territories of indigenous communities. The statistic has often used to demonstrate the essential role that indigenous people play in conserving species. However, by tracing the statistic back to its original source, the 2001 edition of the Encyclopaedia of Biodiversity, the researchers found that the 80% biodiversity claim was due to a simple misinterpretation of the original assertion made by the encyclopaedia-

“nearly 80% of the terrestrial ecoregions are inhabited by one or more indigenous peoples” (Toldedo, 2001),

a statement not so much about the diversity of species but of habitat-types.

This number has done the rounds throughout the whole conservation community and wider intellectual milieu for the best part of 20 years now, without ever being questioned. From peer reviewed publications, including Nature itself (Adam, 2024), to international policy reports produced by authoritative political bodies like the International Convention on Biological Diversity, the UN and the World Bank (UN, 2002; Sobrevila, 2008; Kothari et al., 2012), NGO’s like WWF (WWF, 2020), and articles produced by the media class (Weston & Greenfield, 2022), no one’s hands appear to remain unsullied.

But all this begs the question, what exactly is biodiversity and what is the point of it? The Oxford Dictionary defines it as the “Diversity of plant and animal life, esp. as represented by the number of extant species [i.e., species diversity or richness]”, but also often includes ecosystem type, and genetic variability (Pullin, 2002; Townsend et al., 2015). This definition, readily used in the conservation community, clearly evokes the panopolistic menagerie that is the totality of species on Earth. Biodiversity first emerged in the 1980s and has since risen through the ranks to become the preeminent concept of conservation ecology (Sarkar, 2021; Wilson, 1986). Its protection, restoration, and more recently enhancement, has become the ultimate application of our science, the north star to which we all orientate ourselves. Yet, it remains infamously hard to pin down, being a near all-encompassing shibboleth of every measurement ever conceived by the ecological community. Every good scientist knows, the broader a definition is, the harder it becomes to quantify in any tangible way, making its application malleable to the whims and desires of subjectivity. Indeed, Dr Álvaro and his cohort admit this issue quite openly, and cite it as one of the main reasons, alongside issues with geographic and taxonomic data gaps, why the statistic is fundamentally wrong, stating-

“The 80% claim is based on two assumptions: that biodiversity can be divided into countable units, and that these can be mapped spatially at the global level. Neither feat is possible” 

(Fernández-Llamazares et al., 2024)

Put bluntly, biodiversity is not a strictly scientific term, yet, the overwhelming consensus from the environmental community, which maintains its credibility primarily through an evidence led approach, is that biodiversity is of the greatest importance to humankind, thus necessitating its protection, restoration, and more recently, enhancement. Yet, the reality of the situation, in regards to the science, leaves much to be desired when considering the lofty political ambitions that the thought leaders of ecology hold when it comes to biodiversity conservation. Take the now deceased Professor Emeritus E. O. Wilson, perhaps the most well regarded ecologist of the modern era, who wanted to cordon off 50% of the Earth’s land surface to protect it from human activities, for the sake of conserving biodiversity, despite the radical alterations to society and economy that would be required to achieve such a vision (Wilson, 2016). Or take the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, who estimate that between $600 to 800 billion a year are needed to achieve their global ecosystem restoration targets.

However, the truly unsettling thing about this publication, and the surrounding media circus which has followed it, remains unaddressed by anyone. If biodiversity is unquantifiable and not the objective principle we environmental scientists purport it to be, then why are we so concerned over a single statistic, since now we have just admitted to the world that there is a fundamental flaw in our reasoning around biodiversity and our assertion that it is of the highest importance to society. Surely, to determine the value of something, be it ecological, economic, or social, it helps to have a clearly measurable index of what that thing is, and that is something that we do not currently possess.    

What’s so good about biodiversity?

The natural response to this argument, on the part of my colleagues, is to calmly and coolly disarm the offensive by saying that, although biodiversity is admittedly an ill-defined concept, its all-encompassing breadth serves to unite, in an intuitive and evocative fashion, a series of less charismatic but much more well defined scientific concepts, namely species richness and abundance, which can be readily measured and combined to serve as a robust proxy for overall biodiversity. When we peel back the veil of initiatory illusion, we actually find a discrete and true science, working diligently to uncover all the vital services which species diversity provides us with.

These services are generally divided into three categories: 1) the provisional services, which provide us with essential materials like food, timber, and medicine; 2) the regulatory services, which maintain the safe environmental operating space of our society, including key processes like climate regulation, pollination, and water purification; and finally 3) those more intangible cultural services, the recreational, artistic, and psychological value of species diversity (Kellert et al., 1993; MEM, 2005). However, when you look at these services more closely, the role species diversity plays in their delivery becomes much less certain.

Provisional Services

The provisional services, vital though they are to the functioning of society, are all provided by a staggeringly tiny number of species. According to the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO), only 12 species of plants, out of an estimated ca. 420,000 plant species alive on Earth today, support our agricultural sector, providing ca. 70% of the world’s food, with only three plants- rice (Oryza glaberrima and O. sativa), wheat (Triticum aestivum, T. drum, and T. compactum), and maize (Zea mays) contributing 60% of all calories and proteins obtained by humans from plants (Whitton, 2013; Antonelli et al., 2023; FAO, 2010; Biodiversity International, 2017). While the global meat market relies on only four species of animals- pigs (Sus scrofa domesticus), cows (Bos taurus), chickens (Gallus gallus domesticus), and sheep (Ovis aries), out of a whopping 3-30 million animal species in total (Ritchie, 2023). There are around 1,570 commercial tree species used in the international timber trade, which although sounding like an impressive number, makes up only ca.1% of the total 138,500 species of woody plants worldwide which are not considered commercially viable, due to their inadequacies relating to wood quality, growth patterns, and their ecological niche requirements, e.g., climate and soil needs (Mark et al., 2014; Fazan et al., 2020). The importance of biodiversity in the provision of medicines is often cited as a prime reason for conserving species, as they represent a kind of fragile pharmacopeia out in nature, with ca. 28,000 plant species being used worldwide for medicines (Antonelli et al., 2023). However, of that 28,000, which only represents ca. 7% of extant plant species anyway, the vast majority remain scientifically untested, falling into the nebulous category of “traditional medicine” leaving the question of whether they will be helpful, ineffective, or indeed actively dangerous, hanging in the air. Seemingly then, we could erase the majority of species on Earth and still be able to provision ourselves with all the necessary materials that the environment currently offers us.

Regulatory Services

Of course, my colleagues will rightfully retort, that we do not live in a vacuum and that, in reality, we would be doomed without all the regulatory services which species diversity provides for us. Except for the fact that, the role that species diversity plays in delivering these services remains very unclear (Winfree, 2020).

Take for example, the question of carbon sequestration, the major enemy in the battle against climate change. Does species diversity contribute to tacking climate change by storing carbon? Simply put, no it does not, since the vast majority of atmospheric carbon is stored by a surprisingly select range of species. Peatland ecosystems store almost a third of the world’s carbon, ca. 600 gigatonnes, exceeding the carbon stored by all the worlds other terrestrial ecosystems, with 1 ha of peatland storing up to 4 x as much carbon as the same area in forest (Beaulne et al., 2021; Gregg et al., 2021). The main carbon sequestering species are the sphagnum mosses, of which there are only 380 currently recorded, which have growth patterns which outpace their decomposition, allowing them to accumulate carbon in the soil at a faster rate than other plants (IUCN, 2024). Although it remains unclear how much each of these species contribute to peatland carbon sequestration worldwide, in the UK at least, only three species are considered essential for peat formation- Sphagnum papillosum, S. capillifolium, and S. medium (IUCN, 2024).

The Amazon is the largest tropical rainforest on Earth and is one of our most important terrestrial carbon stores, sequestering ca. 229-280 Petagrams of carbon (Rosan et al., 2024). Yet,50% of this storage is achieved by a miniscule 1% of all the tree species in the Amazon (Fauset et al., 2015). Indeed, the recent controversies of monoculture plantation forestry practices replacing species diverse forests, in the pursuit of rapid and scalable carbon storage, are rooted in this same issue regarding the value of certain carbon storing species versus species diversity as a whole.

Ecologists call these powerhouse organisms key-stone species, species which play an unevenly large role in shaping the composition and functioning of ecosystems, think wetland creating beavers as the iconic example. We ecologists acknowledge quite openly that some species are much more important than others in the functioning and thus service capacity of ecosystems, yet we never seem to acknowledge the contradiction inherent to it.

Oceans represent the world’s largest carbon sink, absorbing ca. 40% of our anthropogenic emissions (McKinley et al., 2016). Phytoplankton, microscopic plants, are the main carbon fixers in the oceans. However, we have no idea how many species of phytoplankton there are and whether or not some of those species are pulling their weight more than others when it comes to carbon storage, given that a staggering 91% of oceanic species are believed to remain unclassified and more than 80% of the worlds oceans are scientifically unexplored (NOAA, 2024).

What about pollination then? Aizen et al. (2009) determined that only ca. 35% of our food production (in tonnage) is actually reliant on pollinators (Ritchie, 2021), given that the majority of our crops are wind pollinated, and therefore do not require any other species to assist with pollination. Despite the huge amount of press and NGO attention relating to the importance of insects in pollination, particularly bees, the literature remains patchy in terms of how much different species contribute to economically relevant pollination, and so it remains an open question as to the extent to which pollinator richness actually relates to the service (Klein et al., 2007). Some scholars argue that pollinator diversity is important in driving crop yield (Garibaldi et al., 2014; Cusser et al., 2016; Vasiliev & Greenwood, 2020), while others argue that only a small selection of common species, namely the industrious bees are doing all the heavy lifting (Richards, 2001; Ghazoul, 2005; Kleijn et al., 2015).

Freshwater ecosystems are considered vital for biodiversity, holding an estimated ca. 10% of known animal species on Earth, even though they cover less than 1% of the Earth surface (Strayer & Dudgeon, 2010). The WWF, in their 2020 Living Planet Report claim that species richness, i.e., “ecosystems containing many species” improves water quality (WWF, 2020). However, they fail to provide any evidence for their claim. Comprehensive species estimates are lacking and peer review studies are limited to the role of some microbial and plant species, making the actual picture appear much less certain than we are led to believe (Song et al., 2024). 

A review of these regulatory services reveals that it would be foolish to assume that we can live without species diversity. However, the tipping point at which biodiversity loss will turn into overall regulatory service loss is very uncertain, and when we consider the dearth of actual data relating to the subject, and the trenchant debates taking place within the literature, the case against species diversity seems, at the least, just as salient as the case for it.

Cultural Services

Finally then, the ecologists, the supposedly hard scientists that they claim to be, will turn, somewhat desperately to the softer social sciences to satisfy their argument, fields of subjectivity which the ecologists have long since tried to distance themselves from in their bid to create an objective science. For, is there not something more intangible at play, something innate to the human condition that necessitates our stewardship of the entire diversity of species on Earth? To which I say, no, there is not. The history of myth, art, and literature demonstrate that human beings are attracted to a relatively small assemblage of charismatic species when compared to the staggering diversity of species on Earth.

Lions, tigers, elephants, dogs, chimpanzees- these are the kinds of animals, mostly large mammals, which we humans gravitate towards, equating to little more than 100- if we’re being charitable- out of the mindboggling 8.7 million to 1 trillion species that live on earth today (Mora et al., 2022; Ritchie, 2022). Conservationists are well aware of this fact and they call these organisms “flag-ship” species, since their charisma is often needed to sell the conservation efforts of the thousands of obscure species, the beetles, microbes, ants, etc. that make up the bulk of actual species diversity (Berti et al., 2020).

Psychologically speaking, evidence for the role species diversity plays in improving and maintaining well-being is almost non-existent, despite what the recent cavalcade of popular nature-psych books say, which often conflate species diversity with nature more generally (Kellert et al., 1993; Jones, 2020; Miles, 2022). The literature supports the notion that cultivated nature spaces, like gardens and parks, and some specific woodland types, can improve mental and physical health, but what that has to do with species diversity, I do not know. Indeed, parks and gardens are often very species poor environments compared to their wild counterparts (Bratmen et al., 2019; Silva et al., 2023).

When the pay-off from ecosystem services is the main factor motivating conservation, the cost-effective action must be to conserve the subset of species that provide the greatest return at relatively short timescales, especially when considering the great cost that often comes with maintaining and promoting biodiversity, a factor not often taken into account in many ecological studies (Kleijn et al., 2015). If we want our governments to protect large wilderness areas, and cease economic development in these places, during this age of stifled economic growth and increasing pressures on agriculture and energy production, then we really need to get our facts straight (WEF, 2023).

Biodiversity- The Ghost in the Ecological Machine?

Since biodiversity is a vague enough term to seemingly include other, more tangibly valuable aspects of ecosystems, like nature-based carbon sequestration, pollination, timber, etc., environmental practitioners can easily slip in and out of whichever one of these measures they want, and still equate it with species diversity. Indeed, for many environmental organisations, biodiversity’s vagueness appears to be more a feature than a bug. In reality though, we must confront the uncomfortable possibility that species diversity, that one aspect that squarely relates to all the vast and varied forms occurring on Earth, could be a ghost in the machine, nothing but a series of phantasmal goal posts forever shifting to fit the needs of the day.

Conservation has come a long way from its non-profit environmentalist roots. The emerging market for biodiversity off-setting, the species equivalent of carbon offsetting, is likely worth more than $3 billion globally (Madsen et al., 2015). Biodiversity has ascended to mainstream mega stardom, and is up there with climate change and AI as part of the current intellectual zeitgeist, and a surge of biodiversity related, non-academic, nature writing has followed (Wainwright Prize, 2023). Now that an industry has formed around biodiversity, less interested in scientific clarity than it is in money, status-quo, and acclaim, I argue that we should now be much warier of misinformation in the conservation space.

Dr Fernández-Llamazares et al. have demonstrated quite expertly how easily misinformation can spread and ossify into gospel in our environmental milieu. It is telling, perhaps, that although eager to criticise bad science and position themselves as rational voices in the protection of the biodiversity paradigm, the authors of this scientific expose do not actually ever once touch on the much deeper, potentially abyssal issue addressed here, perhaps out of a fear of dredging up this dreadnaught of a thought into the hard light of day. Instead, they indirectly reveal the immense political pressure that exists to suppress narratives that run against the consensus of the environmentalist establishment, and the intellectual sheepishness that exists on the part of the academics in avoiding the publication of knowledge that runs counter to the narrative. These thirteen authors, twelve of which are senior figures in ecology, anthropology, and policy, suppressed their findings for five years because they were afraid the topic was too “sensitive” and could be “abused politically”, the latter of which sounds like a euphemism meaning that it might be used, quite justifiably, as a criticism of the politically left leaning environmental narrative (Fischer, 2024). If well-established researchers feel the need to consult multiple ethics committee’s, on whether or not they should disseminate their findings, that is to say to tell the truth and do the basic requisite of their job, then we have a very serious problem indeed (Fischer, 2024).

We all come to this discipline with a love for living things, their immense variety of forms and behaviours, like a never ending candy shop made by an infinitely imaginative evolutionary force. However, as adults we need to get out of the sweety shop and start acting our age. We have a professional obligation and moral responsibility to tell the truth, no matter how much it opposes our deeply held convictions. We abandoned the term nature as an ecological concept when it became clear that it was too unwieldy and too saturated with cultural preconceptions to be scientifically acceptable. Nature was replaced with biodiversity, alongside other more established concepts like “ecosystems” and “biosphere”, which although sounding more scientific, surrounded by the aesthetic of precise mathematics, have turned out to be only incrementally more discrete in their measure than what they replaced. We convinced ourselves that nature could be understood as a pure science, an inert object with value which can be rationally determined but between head and hands must be the heart. In reality, in our fantastical projections and obfuscations, we environmentalists have revealed that ecology is as much emotion as matter.

Now the same fate which befell nature may have to befall biodiversity if we are to progress as a science, but can we bare to surrender the political ground we’ve bungled our way into in recompense? I hope so for all our sakes, since if we do not value truth above all else, then surely we, and all the positive work we have achieved on behalf of natures sublimity, will be lost in the reactionary furor of our more recalcitrant detractors and sceptics.  

So ladies and gentlemen, esteemed colleagues and friends, it would seem that we are in need of a great debate about the future. A debate, not only on the saliency of our craft but on our societies place within the diverse web of life which surrounds us. I throw my hat into the ring, and offer up my perspective in the hope that we may look beyond the cage of politics and tribal allegiances, and begin to form a new vision, forged in the crucible of honest conversation.

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