Restoring biodiversity: The need for urgent action

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OPINION

By Jord David Abiti

From the great African rain forest, shrubs, vegetation, to small parks and gardens in homes, and from big tilapia fish to small microscopic fungi. Biodiversity is the extraordinary variety of life on earth.

We humans are part of it, fully dependent on this web of life; it gives us the food we eat, it filters the water we drink and supplies us we breathe. Nature is as important for our mental and physical well-being as it is for our society’s ability to cope with global and local change, health threats and disasters.

Healthy and resilient societies that grow depend on giving nature the space it needs. The extremely high temperatures we experience, which lead to drought as well as animal deaths, food shortages, and the rising life-threatening epidemics like cholera and the recent pandemic of COVID-19 raise awareness of the link between our own health and that of the ecosystem.

It is demonstrating the need for a sustainable supply chain and the consumption patterns that do not exceed balancing levels and planetary boundaries. This reflects the fact that the risk of emergence and increasing infectious diseases and disaster increases as nature is being destroyed by our way of life, therefore, protecting and restoring biodiversity and putting in place a well-functioning ecosystem is key to boosting our resilience and preventing emergences and spread of future diseases.

Investing in protecting and restoring biodiversity is critical for economic development. Industries and companies rely on species and ecosystem services as critical inputs for production, notably for medicines. Over half of global GDP depends on nature and the services it provides, with three (3) key economic outcomes; notably construction, agriculture, food and drink, all depend on it.

Biodiversity conservation has many potential economic benefits for many sectors of the economy, for example, conserving marine stock and sea species like fish, lobsters for food consumption could increase the annual revenue of Uganda by 5 billion dollars annually, in addition to the water vessels manufacturing sector used for transport and sports. Conserving lakes and rivers and lake shores, including wetlands, could save the insurance industry from the cost of damage losses of housing construction by over 27%.

The overall cost/benefit ratio of a well conservation program can be the most effective fiscal recovery policy for prosperity, sustainability and resilience of Uganda’s society.

Biodiversity is also critical for safeguarding our food security. Biodiversity loss threatens our food security, putting our food security and nutrition at risk

Biodiversity underpins a healthy and nutritious diet, improves rural livelihoods and agricultural productivity, for instance, more than 75% of national food crop types rely on animal pollination, including insects for food crops, and bees produce natural honey as a direct product.

Despite this urgent moral, economic and environmental lifesaving relevance. Nature is in a state of crisis with many species at the verge of extinction and many more lacking suitable natural habitats on a daily basis. The main direct drivers of biodiversity loss include changes in land use, overexploitation, industrial and domesticated household pollutions and invasive alien species- are making nature quickly disappear. We see this in our everyday life, concrete blocks rising up in our green spaces, natural forests which take a long time to grow being cleared and cut to plant perennial crops like maize, cow peas and tea, sugar cane and coffee, including the dangerous pine tree species for timber and firewood. Wilderness is disappearing in front of our eyes and more species being put at the risk of extinction than any other in the human history.

In the last for decades, global wild life population fell by 60% as a result of human activities and almost three quarters of the earth’s surface have been altered including Uganda squeezing nature into small corner of the earth’s surface.

Biodiversity crises and climate change crises are instrinckly linked, climate change accelerate the destruction of natural work through drought experienced through extreme high temperatures inform of heat, flooding and wild fires like the recently experienced in California USA while biodiversity loss and unsustainable use of nature are in turn key drivers of climate change.

Biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse are the one of the biggest threats facing humanity to date and shall be in the next decade, they threaten the foundation of our economy and our own very existence and the cost of our inaction are high and expected to increase.

The world lost an estimated €3.5-18.5 trillion per year in ecosystem services from 1997 to 2011 owing to land-cover change, and an estimated €5.5-10.5 trillion per year from land degradation. Specifically, biodiversity loss results in reduced crop yields and fish catches, increased economic losses from flooding and other disasters, and the loss of potential new sources of medicine.

In Uganda, the rate of biodiversity loss is high, with an estimated 10-11% loss per decade. The annual cost of soil nutrient loss from soil erosion is estimated at $625 million, the country requires approximately sh472.6 billion annually for biodiversity conservation, with high costs for habitat restoration and addressing negative impacts like pollution, forest loss, and unsustainable practices

While Uganda’s Focus on Restoration is ensuring a significant portion (around 96.6%) of the funds allocated to biodiversity conservation in Uganda is for reducing negative impacts and restoring degraded areas, such as forests and wetlands, much effort are critically required in mitigation for critical impact and national contribution to global trends.

The writer is a Student of Master of Business Administration (MBA). Strategy and Communication option

Makerere University Business School (MUBS).