By: Kai Wang

Biodiversity is all the unique life you will find in one area; various plants, animals, fungi, and even microorganisms like bacteria. Each species plays a vital role. A lion for example will eat other animals; if there weren’t any lions then the other animals would reproduce too much, and there wouldn’t be any plants to eat.

Humans play a big impact on biodiversity, causing pollution, global warming, and deforestation, just to name a few. The more biodiversity, the more secure all life is, including ours.

We need biodiversity for pollinators to keep our crops alive. One out of every three bites we take from our food including fruits, vegetables, chocolate, nuts, coffee, and spices, is created with the help of pollinators. Biodiversity loss diminishes the supply of raw materials for medicine. Loss of Biodiversity may limit the discovery of potential treatments for many diseases and health problems. We need biodiversity to keep healthy ecosystems to create carbon we need to combat climate change.

In the last 50 years, humans have wiped out 68 percent of animal populations. Experts say Earth is undergoing its sixth mass extinction. The value of goods and services provided by biodiversity is estimated to be 125 trillion dollars per year. Biodiversity is connected to the food we eat, the water we drink, and our economy, floods, fires, and even disease outbreaks are all connected to biodiversity loss.