Personally, I find the very question of which is more important futile, as in many ways the two are inexorably linked. The three videos are most definitely worth a watch however, click on the photo to link you to the CNN page. The four speakers; Ahmed Djoghlaf, UN Executive Secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity, Paul Smith, Director of Kew’s Millennium Seed Bank , Jon Williams, Head of Biodiversity for PriceWaterhouseCoopers and Phillipe Cousteau, Environmentalist from the renowned Cousteau family raise some important points about what biodiversity is, why it is important and how its loss will effect our economies, health care and perhaps even survival.
Here are some key points they raise:
-‘Biodiversity is the variety of life on earth at all levels—from genes to species to entire ecosystems—it’s essential for sustaining the systems that provide us with food to fuel and other vital services’ (Earths Frontiers)
- “Going to reach tipping point where irreversible damage will be done to biodiversity.” (Djoghlaf, A)
-“(Biodiversity Loss) is one of greatest threats going into the 21st Century” (Costeau. P)
- Pharmaceutical companies which are worth US$6-700 billion are 40-60% dependent on biodiversity for medicines that come from natural species
- Biodiversity services are worth 2-4.5 trillion/per year, which makes it a bigger and more immediate cost than climate change.
CNN have produced a whole range of reports on Earths Frontiers from renewable energies to pinpointing the worlds biodiversity hotspots to bar-coding marine life. There’s even a facebook page if you want to keep up to date with their shows or comment on any of their documentaries.
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