Aquatic Biodiversity

  Marine, coastal and inland areas support a rich assortment of aquatic biological diversity that contributes to the economic, cultural, nutritional, social, recreational and spiritual betterment of human populations. Life originated in the world’s oceans and over the millennia has spread inland and evolved into the diverse forms used today by a variety of stakeholders, including commercial and artisan fishers, fish farmers, developers and tourists.

Maintaining aquatic biodiversity in capture fisheries is fundamental to guaranteeing the productivity of the world’s fish stocks, their resilience and their adaptability to environmental change, including climate change. The world’s capture fisheries harvested an estimated 1 938 aquatic species or species groups in 2011. The majority of this diversity was fin fishes (1 402 species), followed by crustaceans (194 species), mollusks (150 species) and other species. As such, capture fisheries use a greater variety of biological diversity than any other food production sector.

Genetic biodiversity in aquaculture provides the raw ingredients that allow breeders to improve the production, efficiency and marketability of species of aquatic plants and animals. Over 360 species of fish, invertebrates and plants are farmed around the world. This represents a wealth of genetic diversity both within and among species that helps make aquaculture one of the fastest growing food production sectors. Humans began to domesticate terrestrial plants and animals about 12 000 years ago, however more than 90 percent of all cultured aquatic species have only been domesticated since the beginning of the twentieth century.

Although aquatic biodiversity plays a vital role in livelihoods, it is being threatened by factors within the fisheries sector, such as overfishing, destructive fishing practices and introduction of alien species, as well as by external factors such as habitat loss and degradation mainly caused by land-based activities. It will be essential to reduce these threats to continue providing high quality nutrients and economic opportunities to the millions of people that depend on aquatic biodiversity.

The FAO Fisheries and Aquaculture Department is responsible for maintaining information on capture fisheries and aquaculture production, and the development of knowledge, policy and intergovernmental instruments devoted to the promotion of sustainable fisheries and aquaculture practices. In 2007, the FAO Fisheries and Aquaculture Department published the Technical Guidelines on Genetic Resource Management. These Technical Guidelines were developed to support sections of the FAO’s Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries on aspects of genetic resource management in aquaculture. The effective management of aquatic biodiversity can help promote responsible aquaculture by increasing production output and efficiency and help minimize adverse impacts on the environment.

Forests Biodiversity

Forests are among the most important repositories of terrestrial biological diversity. Together, tropical, temperate and boreal forests offer very diverse habitats for plants, animals and micro-organisms.
Biological diversity is the basis for a wide array of goods and services provided by forests. The variety of forest trees and shrubs play a vital role in the daily life of rural communities in many areas, as sources of wood and non-wood products, as contributors to soil and water conservation, and as repositories of aesthetic, ethical, cultural and religious values. Forest animals are a vital source of nutrition and income to many people, and have vital roles in forest ecology, such as pollination, seed predation, dispersal and germination, and predation on potential pest species.
Forest biological diversity is one of the seven thematic elements of the concept of Sustainable Forest Management approved by the General Assembly of the UN in 2007, together with the Non-Legally Binding Instrument on All Types of Forests.
Forests provide more than 10% of the GDP in many of the poorest countries. It is estimated that the forestry sector provides formal employment for 10 million people and informal employment for additional 30 to 50 million people in developing countries. Notwithstanding such a relevant role in world economy, progress towards sustainable forest management is still limited, and there is continuing loss and degradation of forests in many developing countries. Losing forest diversity means missing opportunities for medicines, food, raw materials and employment opportunities, in one word: welfare.

The FAO Forestry Programme focuses on how to maximize the potential of forests, trees and related resources to improve people’s economic, social and environmental conditions while ensuring that the resource is conserved to meet the needs of future generations.

FAO works to improve the knowledge on sustainable forest and wildlife management, and supports the development and implementation of appropriate policies and practices to ensure forest and wildlife protection in order to maintain or improve their capacity to produce wood and non-wood products, sustain wildlife populations, conserve biodiversity, safeguard wildlife habitat, mitigate climate change, and protect soils and watersheds.

Plants Biodiversity

About 7,000 species of plants have been cultivated for consumption in human history. The great diversity of varieties resulting from human and ecosystem interaction guaranteed food for the survival and development of human populations throughout the world in spite of pests, diseases, climate fluctuations, droughts and other unexpected environmental events.
Presently, only about 30 crops provide 95% of human food energy needs, four of which (rice, wheat, maize and potato) are responsible for more than 60% of our energy intake. Due to the dependency on this relatively small number of crops for global food security, it will be crucial to maintain a high genetic diversity within these crops to deal with increasing environmental stress and to provide farmers and researchers with opportunities to breed for crops that can be cultivated under unfavorable conditions, such as drought, salinity, flooding, poor soils and extreme temperatures.
Plant genetic resources are the basis of food security and consist of diversity of seeds and planting material of traditional varieties and modern cultivars, crop wild relatives and other wild plant species. These resources are used as food, feed for domesticated animals, fibber, clothing, shelter and energy. The conservation and sustainable use of PGRFA is necessary to ensure crop production and meet growing environmental challenges and climate change. The loss of these resources or a lack of adequate linkages between conservation and their use poses a severe threat to the world’s food security in the long term. The potential of plant genetic resources for food security, sustainable livelihoods, adequate nutrition and adaptation to climate change is enormous, if managed in a sustainable manner. 

FAO is dedicated to improve knowledge and conservation of plant genetic resources to ensure the sustainable provision of food in the long term, and contributing to make full use of the genetic resources available, including wild relatives of main crops currently used.

The most obvious reason for maintaining plant diversity is because we rely on plants for food, and a blight that targets a major crop could have serious implications. Unfortunately, the world's major staple crops have been greatly homogenized over the years, and that's not a good thing. Many countries have lost agro-biodiversity (or the diversity of their agricultural crops), which puts the cultures and livelihoods of the poorest populations at even greater risk.

Innovative new medicines are another reason to maintain biodiversity among plants. It's a dangerous world out there and plants, being for the most part immobile, have had to evolve some particularly fiendish and unique defenses that scientists can use for medicinal purposes. Even animals, mobile creatures that they are, have had to develop some pretty potent defenses that can help scientists cook up new medicines. But in the most basic sense, the reason we need plants - along with organisms like algae and cyano-bacteria - is because they're essential for a properly functioning planet. We wouldn't even have the oxygen that we're so fond of breathing, for example, without photosynthesis.

Fortunately, conservationists had the insight to begin conserving plants in the 1950s. Some plants are maintained in their original habitats and others are held in gene banks, cell cultures and at various zoos and botanical gardens [source: FAO]. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations lists 20 major plant gene banks around the world. These banks house various types of seeds but also back up one another in the event of natural and manmade disasters. 

Botanists use two methods to preserve and store a plant's genetic material. Drying and freezing seeds mimics the natural process of winter. Seeds stored by this method survive for decades. But frozen seeds must be thawed and planted to produce seeds that will grow crops. Cryonic freezing is more expensive, but it keeps stored genes "fresh" much longer than conventional drying and freezing. At cryonic temperatures, molecular action stops. Think of it as suspended animation. The frozen seed stays in the same condition, not changing or aging. The genetic seed banks around the world use these methods to store genetic and seed samples from hundreds of plants.

Harmone Disrupting Chemicals - in Colorado River

The Colorado River flows through the town of Rifle in Garfield County, Colorado. Photo (taken 1972) by David Hiser, courtesy of U.S. National Archives, Flickr/Creative Commons.

This week, more evidence came in that hydraulic fracturing (or fracking) poses potentially serious risks to drinking water quality and human health.

A team of researchers from the University of Missouri found evidence of hormone-disrupting activity in water located near fracking sites – including samples taken from the Colorado River near a dense drilling region of western Colorado.

The Colorado River is a source of drinking water for more than 30 million people.

The peer-reviewed study was published this week in the journal Endocrinology.

Fracking is the controversial process of blasting water mixed with sand and chemicals deep underground at high pressure so as to fracture rock and release the oil and gas it holds. It has made previously inaccessible fossil fuel reserves economical to tap, and drilling operations have spread rapidly across the country.

The University of Missouri team found that 11 chemicals commonly used in the fracking process are “endocrine disrupters” – compounds that can affect the human #hormonal system and have been linked to cancer, birth defects, and infertility.

“More than 700 chemicals are used in the fracking process, and many of them disturb hormone function,” said Dr. Susan Nagel, associate professor of obstetrics, gynecology, and women’s health at the University of Missouri School of Medicine and a co-author of the study, in a news release.

“With fracking on the rise, populations may face greater health risks from increased endocrine-disrupting chemical exposure.”

The research team collected samples from ground water and surface water from sites in Garfield County, Colorado, where fracking fluids had accidentally spilled, as well as from the nearby Colorado River, into which local streams and groundwater drain. They also took samples from other areas of Garfield County where little drilling has taken place, as well as from a county in Missouri where there had been no drilling at all.

They found that the samples from the spill site had moderate-to-high levels of #endocrine-disrupting activity, and the Colorado River samples had moderate levels.  The other two samples, taken from areas with little or no drilling activity, showed low levels of endocrine-disrupting activity.

The new findings add urgency to calls for moratoriums on fracking until the risks have been fully assessed and regulations and monitoring put in place to safeguard water supplies and public health.

Due to the so-called “Halliburton loophole,” the oil and gas industry is exempt from important requirements under the federal Safe Drinking Water Act, and states have been slow to fill the regulatory gap.

Colorado, in particular, should exercise the utmost caution.

According to a report by Ceres, a Boston-based non-profit organization that educates investors about corporate environmental risks, 92 percent of Colorado’s shale gas and oil wells are located in “extremely high” water stress regions, defined as areas in which cities, industries and farms are already using 80 percent or more of available water.

Adding contamination risks to the high volume of water fracking wells require – typically 4-6 million gallons per well – argues strongly for a precautionary approach to future development and a pause in existing production until the full range of environmental health risks can be assessed.

But Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper has sais the state will sue any city that bans fracking within its borders.  Indeed, in July 2012, the statesued the front-range town of Longmont, which had issued such a ban.

A statement about the new findings of endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs) in waters near fracking sites issued by Concerned Health Professionals of New York, and posted, concludes with this warning:

“These results, which are based on validated cell cultures, demonstrate that public health concerns about fracking are well-founded and extend to our hormone systems. The stakes could not be higher. Exposure to #EDCs has been variously linked to breast cancer, infertility, birth defects, and learning disabilities. Scientists have identified no safe threshold of exposure for EDCs, especially for pregnant women, infants, and children.”

And environmental health expert Sandra Steingraber writes in a letter posted at the same site:

“[I]t seems to me, the ethical response on the part of the environmental health community is to reissue a call that many have made already:  hit the pause button via a national moratorium on high volume, horizontal drilling and fracking and commence a comprehensive Health Impact Assessment with full public participation.”

Biosefaty and Genetically Modified Organizms

While the jury on genetically modified organisms (GMOs) is still out, there is a growing body of evidence on environmental risks such as threats of gene flow, secondary weeds and pests, and the effects of toxins on non-target species. Supporters of GMOs claim improved characteristics of GM products, high yields, and low costs.

The health risks of GMOs include potential allergenicity of several GM foods and food ingredients, increased toxicity, and the potential development of antibiotic resistance and immunodeficiency. Moreover, there is a threat that genetic engineering can have social and financial effects, enabling transnational companies to monopolize and control the technology by enforcing intellectual property claims. For example, to ensure patent rights protection of GM-seeds, corporations have produced “terminator” seeds, which are sterile in subsequent generations, thus forcing farmers to buy seeds every year (Harutyunyan, 2005).

Armenia, as a country in transition, ranks high in vulnerability to the consequences of importation, production, and usage of GMOs due to such factors as dependency on agriculture, high necessity for

crop improvements, deficiency in GMO regulating legislation, and imperfect institutional capacity. Officially, GMOs are neither imported nor commercially produced in Armenia. However, according to some experts, NGO representatives, and officials there are apprehensions that many products imported to Armenia contain GM ingredients; in particular, GM soy, which was introduced initially as humanitarian aid and then on a commercial basis (Harutyunyan, 2005). This is partly because the genetic origin of imported seeds, plants, and animals is not registered at national border crossings due to lack of GMO testing laboratory. Thus, this field is not properly regulated (Harutyunyan et al.,2008).

It is worth noting that Armenia is a country of rich biodiversity and is a center of origin for wild ancestors of crops and livestock. There are more than 3,500 high plants, 4,000 fungi, and around 17,500 invertebrate and vertebrate species recorded in the territory of Armenia. Indeed, Armenia falls within one of the five centers of diversity and origin of the world’s major food crops described by Vavilov (1992), the creator of the world’s largest collections of plant germplasm. Hence, it is critically important for Armenia to strengthen its capacity to pursue biosafety policies based on well balanced decisions on the introduction of biotechnological innovations. The country should be responsible for providing a safe and healthy environment and conserving its genetic diversity for present and future generations (Harutyunyan, 2005).  

  So think before using those. 

We Need

A) We need to make a significant dent in the climate change curve.
B) We need to defend our oceans by challenging water pollution and wasteful and destructive fishing.
C) We need to create a toxin free future with safer alternatives to hazardous chemicals.
D) We need to protect biodiversity.
conservation education explains why rain forest are essential for earth to produce enough oxygen for humans, to store CO2 = carbon dioxide, to balance weather + climate, protect Earth's environment naturally against environmental + human pollution, to keep Nature balanced
E) We need to protect our rain forests. Rain-forests produce most of our oxygen. Rain forest plants grow the cure for many illnesses. Rainforests regulate our climate. If rain forests are destroyed billions of living beings will die.
BSB works hard to protect all forests on Earth and the animals, plants and people that depend on them.
We campaign for sustainable agriculture. Emissions reductions and increases in the use of energy-efficient technologies are strongly needed.
F) Conservation of local flora, fauna and natural habitats through offering conservation advice on development proposals, planning strategies and environmental impact assessment, law enforcement, research and implementing biodiversity conservation plans.
G) Conducting regular ecological surveys to take inventory and update the status of biodiversity assets to establish an ecological database.
Soil conservation is important to make sure that we have the land we need to live on.
H) We need to protect our soil, we need to fight erosion to protect our future food supplies. Erosion control can be done with grass, mulch or plants. If you see something that's making the soil sick, do everything you can to make the soil healthy again.
If you live on a farm, make sure that the soil on your fields and pastures stays right where it is right now!

Erosion control is very important, because it helps to conserve water!
Water conservation is needed for a growing population!