Biodiversity – The Most Important Word in the World
Bio-diversity is the most important word in the human language. This one word sums up the nature of the problems faced by modern societies around the world. Our existential threat is caused by the way that we, as humans, are destroying all forms of diversity.
From diversity comes balance. Without diversity there is no balance. In a healthy system all things support each other and prevent one element dominant. When one thing becomes dominant in an unbalanced system then there is a reaction and new elements might come into the system to try to correct it. The system then becomes unreliable for a time until balance can be restored. Nature will always try to balance itself.
For human life balance equals predictability. Without predictability we have problems. With high unpredictability we will struggle to live.
Take our human gut. In our gut we will find a huge diversity of micro organisms that are there to help us digest our food as well as to promote our health. The highest density of microbial life on Earth can be found in the colon.
There is a close relationship between the gut biome and what we want to eat. The biome actually sends signals to our brains to tell us what sort of food we want to eat. We think we are then ones ordering our food but in fact it is a colony of bacteria and viruses that are ordering our food! For instance if our biome is consistently fed with junk food it will tell our brain to eat junk food. If we consistently eat health food then our biome will order health food. So if you want to change you diet for the better, then eat healthy food for up to six weeks and your biome will then carry on ordering healthy food from then on. Even eating healthy food for a week will show you the level of improved sense of well-being that results. So it turns out that a good balance of bio-diversity is important to our life force.
As it is in the human gut, so it is in the soil. Healthy soil has a huge bio-diversity of life forms, from bacteria to viruses to insects and animals who are all important for soil health. These organisms make channels through the soil that allow water and air to penetrate and also take organic matter from the surface of the soil down into the mineral layers of soil to improve the consistency and water retaining qualities of soil. Plus soil has a similar function to the gut biome in that it supports the availability of food for plants. Undisturbed soil develops networks of mycelium threads which interconnect everything, a bit like the world wide web does for humans. Mycelium breaks down the mineral elements into a form that is available for plants to use as food and in return the plants support the mycelium. The mycelium network is also a very good communication network in the same way as the world wide web in that if one plant is under attack it can communicate this to other plants so that they can muster their defences.
In the plant world diversity means if one plant fails another may still provide the same function. Functions of plants include feeding humans, feeding insects and animals, feeding soil, providing shade or cover for animals and birds, providing protection for other plants. If you look into a healthy ecosystem in the wild you will see a great variety of plants performing all these tasks and more. Also imagine a field of monoculture crops like wheat. A field of wheat will be a n easy target for any creature or organism that wants to feed on it. In other words it’s a big target and easy to find and doesn’t have any support network from other plants. So the farmer has to feed and protect it by use of chemicals, which end up in the end product. Better to have a multitude of plants in a field all providing multiple functions in support of their collective function.
In the insect world diversity is equally important. Blackfly for instance are a big problem to some gardeners, but if the plants are strong and there is a big diversity of plants around, then ladybirds will appear and after a couple of weeks the blackfly will be gone. Balance in action.
This topic of course also works in the animal realm. In the UK we have lost our top predators and as a result we have an over population of deer that feed on young tree shoots and can keep tree re-generation in check indefinitely. In Yellowstone park when top predators such as the wolf were reintroduced it caused what is called a trophic cascade, where wolves check the deer population which allows trees to re-generate, which encourages beavers to thrive and build dams which changes the water courses which allows other species such as birds to thrive etc.
The point is that we are part of an eco-system, and that eco-system is complex and relies on bio-diversity to thrive, We rely on that bio-diversity to thrive, which is why we are not currently thriving, because we are systematically destroying the bio-diversity, which is why we should consider bio-diversity to be the most important word in the human language.