Biodiversity

​At beginning of April the Final Report of the Citizen’s Assembly on Biodiversity Loss was officially launched, following agreement across on a potentially transformative suite of 159 recommendations. This marks a significant milestone along the journey to protect Ireland’s natural heritage and is a timely opportunity to consider what exactly is Biodiversity? And why is it so important to us? 
Biodiversity is shorthand for biological diversity and refers to all life on Earth. The living world is a fascinating and varied place, encompassing a dizzying assortment of plants, animals, insects, birds and marine life, each carving a niche for themselves. 

We are proud of the greenery of Ireland’s world-renowned landscapes, which attract tourists from near and far and are important to our natural heritage. However, as the Citizen’s Assembly Report highlights, this reassuring greenery also masks the fact we are increasingly squandering the natural wealth we inherited, a situation underlined by the Government’s declaration of dual Climate and Biodiversity Crisis in 2019. If we look a little closer at what biodiversity contributes to our daily lives, we see why this is a crisis worth understanding and acting on. 

The benefits of biodiversity are both direct, like food, timber and other raw materials, and indirect, like pollination, regulating water and air quality, as well climate, and we can’t forget all the health and well-being effects from time spent surrounded by nature too. Areas that are particularly rich in biodiversity, for example bogs and wetlands, provide crucial ecosystem services, as well being wonderful places to visit. These ecosystem services (watch this video by EU Environment for a great introduction) are so important that human life would not be possible without them.

We know our biodiversity is struggling based on reports from multiple agencies, some of which are focused on individual aspects of biodiversity like pollinators and birds, and others which look at broader trends like the EPA’s State of the Environment Report and the NPWS Article 17 Reports. The number of insects and birds are key indicators to biodiversity and startling statistics such as a 98% decline in the number of curlews in just 30 years illustrate how we are trending in the wrong the direction. We can also see signs of the decline in our daily lives, do you remember when the front of your car used to be covered in insects?   

We ask a lot of nature yet human activities undertaken without regard for nature are the underlying cause for biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse. These activities include changes in the use of land and sea, direct exploitation of species, pollution, and human-induced climate change. There are many useful resources out there to help us on our journey to reversing biodiversity loss but the first step is take a moment to listen to nature, wherever you find it, and make space for it in your life and in your decision-making. This video on the National Biodiversity Data Centre’s Maps can introduce you to some of the fascinating biodiversity right on your doorstep! 
 
Resources to get started:
https://citizensassembly.ie/citizens-assembly-on-biodiversity-loss/ 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jH-KHpLEIeY 
https://biodiversityireland.ie/ 
https://biodiversityireland.ie/top10/10-ways-to-help-biodiversity/ 
https://iwt.ie/ 
https://bsbi.org/wp-content/uploads/dlm_uploads/2023/02/BSBI-Plant-Atlas-2020-summary-report-Ireland-WEB.pdf 
https://www.ibcp.ie/ 
https://www.naturalcapitalireland.com/resources 
https://environment.ec.europa.eu/strategy/biodiversity-strategy-2030_en 
https://www.cbd.int/ 
https://www.unep.org/un-biodiversity-conference-cop-15 

Links within article:
https://citizensassembly.ie/wp-content/uploads/Report-on-Biodiversity-Loss_mid-res.pdf 
https://www.irishtimes.com/environment/climate-crisis/2022/11/17/biodiversity-and-climate-crises-must-be-addressed-in-tandem/#:~:text=On%20May%209th%2C%202019%2C%20D%C3%A1il,inside%20and%20outside%20the%20chamber. 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6luBEJfi3s 
https://pollinators.ie/resources/ 
https://birdwatchireland.ie/publications/birds-of-conservation-concern-in-ireland-bocci-2020-2026/ 
https://www.epa.ie/our-services/monitoring--assessment/assessment/irelands-environment/state-of-environment-report-/ 
https://www.npws.ie/publications/article-17-reports 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=106pEX3vi7M 


Photo Credit: Marton Zsoldos