Let's Bank on Nature, Not Bankrupt It
Species are wondrous, productive, critical links in the complex web of life. There's no question that they are the building blocks which underpin healthy ecosystems that provide us clean water, clean air, medicines, food, and livelihoods, and they continue to teach us fantastic secrets that inspire science, engineering and culture. At the same time, there's also no question that species are facing tremendous pressures from habitat loss, climate change, and human activities which, in concert, are driving extinction rates to an estimated one-thousand times what is considered natural. We must do more now, than study and protect them.
Our global community is growing, and putting more pressure on the planet than ever before. In just forty years, it is estimated that our population will increase from 6.9 billion to more than 9 billion people -- with two million more people entering the middle class. This will create overwhelming demand for food, fresh water, and safe, reliable sources of energy on our planet's diminishing natural capacity.
With these realities on the immediate horizon, we must recognize that everything that sustains us is a gift from nature, an irreplaceable wealth of ecosystem services that we cannot manufacture or produce on our own: our water from aquifers, rivers and glaciers; our grains and food crops from pollinators and organisms in productive soil; our fisheries from healthy coral reefs, and clean oceans; our stable climate from the carbon storages of trees, mangroves and seagrasses. These are not gifts outright and these are not gifts guaranteed.
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