biodiversity

Biodiversity is the measure of variety of the Earth's animal, plant and microbial species; of genetic differences within species and of the ecosystems that support those species. The term first came to public attention in 1992 at the Rio Earth Summit at which a convention for the preservation for the maintenance of biodiversity was signed by over 100 world leaders [excluding the USA as they feared it would undermine the patents and licences of US biotechnology companies] …

…tropics where there is massive habitat destruction. Because only a small proportion of the species on the planet have been documented,calculating the rate of loss is very difficult. However, the Rio Summit, Darwin Initiative and so on has focussed people's attention on this critical global issue. What remains to be seen is the political will to carry legislation through at a global scale to manage environments much better so that biodiversity can be maintained.