Say biodiversity and you think of a lush forest teeming with a myriad of animal and plant species — of course, but not only that. Life, thanks to its blind determination, manages to blossom in an infinite variety of environments, with surprising results. Deserts, volcanoes, mountains capped by permanent ice: even the most extreme and inhospitable ecosystems can be home to animals and plants that have adapted in the name of survival.

Biodiversity, a world still to be discovered

Our knowledge of the animal and plant kingdoms is extremely partial: to date, more than 1,700,000 species have been described, but scientists hypothesise that more than twelve million may exist. The truly great frontier that remains unexplored is the sea. The oceans cover roughly two thirds of the Earth's surface, yet we have explored only 5 per cent of them. Down there lurk unimaginable creatures — monstrous and marvellous — in an alien world that is dark, cold and, above all, free of human presence. Yet our knowledge of the other species with which we share the planet risks remaining fragmentary: by the end of the century, 50 per cent of living species risk disappearing precisely because of our impact.

The Convention on Biological Diversity is celebrated

22 May marks World Biodiversity Day, established by the United Nations in 1993. The date was chosen to commemorate the adoption of the Convention on Biological Diversity, which took place on 22 May 1992. The theme of the 2019 edition is "Our Biodiversity, Our Food, Our Health" because, as UN Secretary-General António Guterres has said, "the quality of the water we drink, what we eat and the air we breathe depends on the health of nature."

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Precisely with the aim of achieving the goal of halting what appears to be a genuine collapse of biodiversity worldwide, in December 2022 a historic agreement was reached at the close of Cop15, the fifteenth World Conference on Biological Diversity, held in Montréal, Canada. A "peace pact with nature" whose primary objective is to designate as protected area 30 per cent of the world's land and oceans.

25 years in defence of biodiversity

Since the year it entered into force, the Convention on Biological Diversity has achieved remarkable results, from the expansion of protected areas and species, to the adoption of the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety and the Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources and the Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits Arising from their Utilization, through to the creation and implementation of national and international strategies and action plans for the conservation of biodiversity. Following the adoption of the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity for the period 2011–2020, whose mission is to stem the loss of biological diversity and ensure the restoration of ecosystems, significant progress has also been made towards achieving some of the twenty Aichi Biodiversity Targets. The twenty-fifth anniversary of the Convention therefore represents an opportunity to highlight the achievement of important goals, while at the same time looking to the future and assessing the continuation of the Strategic Plan, which will conclude in 2020.

The immeasurable value of biodiversity

Biodiversity is capable of enhancing territories and generating wealth — through ecotourism, for instance, an increasingly widespread activity. It cannot, however, be assessed from an economic standpoint alone; that would be wrong and superficial. Just try to imagine a woodland without the primeval howl of a wolf in the night, the sea without the mysterious migrations of eels, the sky without the daring aerial manoeuvres of swallows, the outline of a rocky ridge without the sinuous silhouette of a chamois etched against the sky, or a pond without the melancholy croaking of a tree frog, or a forest without the woody, alien beauty of an oak tree, or a meadow without the intoxicating scent of flowers that fills the air. Without animals and plants, life would not be possible — and even if it were, it would perhaps hold no meaning.