By Schyler Brown, Houston Audubon Conservation Specialist
In 2000, the United Nations (UN) announced that the 22nd of May would be celebrated as the International Day for Biological Diversity. The significance of the proclamation was to celebrate the adoption of a framework intended to protect biological diversity across multiple levels of biological organization. So what is biodiversity, and why does this proclamation matter? According to Joaquin Hortal (et al. 2022) biodiversity refers to the variety of life at all levels of biological organization (think cellular, organismal, population, ecosystem, landscape, etc.). To oversimplify the concept, biodiversity could describe the variety of flowers in your garden, or the different kinds of pets you have in your home. In conservation biology, biodiversity is a measure that can tell ecologists a lot about a system, including its stability, successive stage, and/or adaptability.
The concept of biodiversity and its implications for a biological system can become quite complicated; the bottom line is that a more biodiverse system tends to be more resilient and resistant to disturbance and tends to provide the resources necessary to an organism’s survival in the system. If you live in the Greater Houston-Galveston region and want to see this concept in action, all you have to do is step outside. The best spots to see a wide variety of birds in Houston are places with lots of different kinds of plants, while perhaps the worst place to see a variety of birds is in a suburb where the only plants around are turf grasses. Turf grasses in suburban lawns offer zero resources to any species of bird native to Houston. One solution is to plant native Texas plants in your lawn, which will provide habitats for different bird species. Houston Audubon even offers native plants for sale and encourages the creation of local habitats for birds through our Bird Friendly Spaces Program. Unfortunately, the hard truth is that individual action can only go so far. That is what this year’s International Day for Biological Diversity theme, #partoftheplan, is all about.
#Partoftheplan is a call to action, not only to share what you are doing for the planet, but to hold accountable the leaders in our governments and big businesses that recklessly destroy the biodiverse systems we all depend on. For too long the burden of solving the loss of biodiversity (and other ecological disasters) has been put on individuals in communities. Businesses will sell items wrapped in plastic and tell you that the solution to overflowing landfills and litter is to wield re-usable bags. They will burn billions of tons of fossil fuels and suggest that the solution to climate change is to carpool or buy an electric car. They will flatten wild, endangered Texas prairies, and when we wistfully reminisce the song of a meadowlark, they will tell us we didn’t have to buy the home in the new community. Enough is enough; vote in your local, state, and federal elections. Take real action, and research the leaders in your community who are interested in seeing the change you want to see. We must elect leaders from the bottom up – leaders who will elect other leaders on our behalf to make the right decisions for our planet’s biodiversity, and for our own health.
Lit Cited
Hortal, J., Cabeza, M., Diniz-Filho, J.A.F. et al. Building a truly diverse biodiversity science. npj biodivers 1, 2 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44185-022-00003-1
United Nations. International Day for Biological Diversity. (2024) accessed May 2024. https://www.un.org/en/observances/biological-diversity-day
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