Biodiversity underpins our lives, but is rapidly being eroded

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We all depend on biodiversity – yet we are losing it fast. We also know surprisingly little about it. This report looks at what the best-known group of organisms, birds, can tell us about global biodiversity, why it is being lost and how we should conserve it. Birds provide us with a particularly good window on these issues, thanks (among other things) to their great public appeal, world-wide distribution, extraordinary migrations and economic importance.

Biodiversity is fundamental to human well-being

Biodiversity – the variability among living things and ecological systems – is the world’s natural wealth. Our lives depend on it, both in obvious ways and in ways that we are only just starting to understand. Governments around the world are now coming to recognise that a sustainable future really does depend on biodiversity conservation (see box 1). It is clear that biodiversity provides us with many vital goods and services, and maintains the life-sustaining systems of the biosphere. However, there is still more to it than this. The amazing complexity and beauty of nature, product of a vast span of evolutionary time, are recognised and celebrated in many societies. Experiencing and understanding wild nature fulfils deep aesthetic and intellectual human needs. Conserving species and ecosystems can be seen as a moral duty, both because of their intrinsic right to exist, and because they are part of our natural and cultural heritage – at least as precious and important to us as great works of art and architecture.

We are losing biodiversity fast

The need for action has never been so pressing. The world is changing fast as humans appropriate more and more of its resources – there are many more of us than ever before, and each of us is more demanding too. We are now overdrawing on the earth’s renewable supplies and eating heavily into natural capital. Already, we have cleared half the world’s natural habitats. A third of what is left will go within a human generation, if current trends continue (box 2). Human-induced climate change is set to cause far-reaching impacts on global biodiversity. Spurred on by climate change, alien invasive species are damaging and impoverishing ecosystems around the world. Because of these and other pressures, species are vanishing rapidly – at many times their natural extinction rate.

Birds can help us understand the problems and find the solutions

There is little dispute that global biodiversity is declining, but accurate measures are very hard to come by. This also makes it hard to plan the best responses to the problem, and to see whether conservation efforts are having any positive effect. This report shows how birds – the best-known major group of organisms – can help us understand the problems and piece together the solutions. Birds are found almost everywhere on Earth, from the oceans to the mountaintops, from tropical forests to the polar ice-caps. Their extraordinary migrations knit the world together (box 3). Their fascinating diversity and behaviour have great public appeal. Birdwatching connects people with the natural world around them, and provides a window on the environment. Birds are just one component of biodiversity – and far from the most significant in species numbers or biomass – but they have a substantial role in many economies. In the United States, for example, birdwatching generated an estimated $85 billion in overall economic output in 2001. The economic contribution that birds make through ecological services such as pest control, pollination, seed dispersal and carrion consumption has never been quantified, but must, in many cases, be enormous.

This report sets out where we stand and where we need to go

Although many information gaps remain, we know an exceptional amount about birds. This report is based on data provided by the many, many people – experts and enthusiasts alike – who study and observe birds across the world. It draws most heavily on the combined efforts and knowledge of the BirdLife Partnership in more than 100 countries. It is a summary assessment for 2004 of the status of birds world-wide ('STATE'), the threats that affect them ('PRESSURE') and the measures being taken – or that need to be taken – to conserve them ('RESPONSE'). Some of the analyses and case studies provide 'snapshots' of where we are in 2004; others will be updated regularly with new data (and made available on this web site) so that trends can be tracked.

Boxes: case studies and scientific analyses

Download SOWB pp.4–5 (PDF, 442 KB) containing the following:

1. Biodiversity must be conserved to achieve sustainable development

2. Human impacts on the planet are growing – to the extent that we are compromising our own future

3. Migrating birds know no boundaries
The spectacular migration pathways of seven migrant bird species