The importance of biological diversity to human society is hard to overstate. An estimated 40 per cent of the global economy is based on biological products and processes. Poor people, especially those living in areas of low agricultural productivity, depend especially heavily on the genetic diversity of the environment. The effective use of biodiversity at all levels - genes, species and ecosystems - is therefore a precondition for sustainable development. However, human activities the world over are causing the progressive loss of species of plants and animals at a rate far higher than the natural background rate of extinction.

In April 2002, governments at the sixth meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity, which is administered under UNEP’s aegis, agreed “to achieve by 2010 a significant reduction of the current rate of biodiversity loss at the global, regional and national levels as a contribution to poverty alleviation and to the benefit of all life on earth”. This target was endorsed by the World Summit on Sustainable Development, and is the focus for UNEP’s biodiversity-related activities. Biodiversity refers to the uncounted variety of living things on the planet. These living organisms, interacting among themselves and with the non-living environment, comprise the ecosystems of the world. They supply food, medicines, timber and fuel, and play a fundamental role in providing breathable air, conserving soils and stabilizing climates.

These benefits, or ‘ecosystem services’, which are ultimately essential for human life on earth, are the basis of a range of industries, from agriculture and biotechnology to fisheries and ecotourism. The value of ecosystem services was the subject of the five-year Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA), in which UNEP was a partner. The MA concluded in 2005, and its synthesis reports reveal that ecosystem services are habitually undervalued, at an uncountable cost to society, especially the poor who rely most heavily on the planet’s natural capital for health and livelihoods.