Gordon L Woodroffe shares his concerns about the importance of biodiversity

As the Copenhagen summit draws nearer it is important that governments do not lose sight of the fact that the health implications on the loss of biodiversity are every bit as great as those caused by global warming. This has been dramatically illustrated in Eric Chivian and Aaron Bernstein’s book: Sustaining Life: how human life depends on biodiversity. Biodiversity is the variety of life on earth: its genes, species, populations and ecosystems. All too often the human race acts as if we are totally independent of nature; as if we could do without most of its organisms and the life-giving services they provide; as if the natural world were designed to be an infinite source of products solely for our use and an infinite sink for our effluents.

The disruption and loss of habitats by global warming can have serious consequences for the species that depend on them

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