Preservation of Biodiversity
ENVIRONMENT
The world’s biodiversity is largely unknown: 1.9 million species are listed in the Catalogue of Life, but there would seem to be four times as many, i.e. 8.7 million! And of these 8.7 million, nearly one million are threatened with extinction… The 6ème mass extinction of biodiversity is underway.
The issues
The Global Biodiversity Review report, published in 2019 by the Intergovernmental Science and Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), is chilling. The two key findings of this report are usually quoted: 1 million species are threatened with extinction and 75% of ecosystems are degraded on a global scale…But other figures are eloquent and worrying: 1/3 of land and 75% of freshwater resources are used for agriculture or livestock; the amount of resources extracted each year in the world (sustainably and unsustainably) has doubled since 1980; urban areas have more than doubled since 1992; plastic pollution has increased tenfold since 1980… Five main factors explain these impacts: destruction of species’ habitats; overexploitation of species; chemical pollution; climate disruption; invasive species. Finally, the scenarios for the 2050 horizon presented in this report are all pessimistic except for one, which is based on a complete change in the development model. The challenges are therefore colossal and the responses to be provided must be unprecedented and commensurate with these challenges.
Our services
We are able to coordinate biodiversity diagnostics, both faunistic and floristic, by mobilising our in-house expertise and third-party experts specialised on specific ecosystems or animal classes. We also contribute our expertise in various related fields (climate change, sustainable agriculture, forest management, mapping and remote sensing, etc.), in order to have a holistic and multidisciplinary approach and provide advisory support to meet the social, economic and environmental challenges of biodiversity conservation. Finally, we contribute to the formulation and evaluation of projects with biodiversity-related issues, to the conduct of specific studies on biodiversity, to training and capacity building of government officials, local authorities, civil society and the private sector in order to promote proven approaches and good practices in biodiversity conservation.
