Translating Life's Diversity.

The article discusses the primary causes of biodiversity loss. The immediate causes are apparent: expansion of cattle ranching and agricultural activities; extensive adoption of agroindustrial models that radically simplify the rural landscape and rely on unsustainable use of energy and chemicals; overexploitation of biotic resources such as fisheries, old growth forests, bush meat, and ornamentals; introduction of invasive species; and recently, the first effects of climate change. All the above reduce the integrity, size, and connectivity of habitats; extirpate populations of species and degrade their genetic pool, eventually leading to extinction; threaten the functioning of ecosystems; and, generally speaking, destroy biodiversity. Despite very real and extensive gaps in ecological science, researchers know a lot about many of the above causes. Databases of primary biodiversity data (observations of species) are growing very fast and becoming available through the Internet. The amount of remote sensing data we are obtaining--at unprecedented resolutions--is staggering, far beyond our current capacity to process and understand the data. Because natural scientists know about immediate causes of biodiversity loss, and more importantly, know how to study them, they tend to concentrate on them. The immediate causes of biodiversity destruction act on ecological processes amenable to the methods and theories of the natural scientist, enabling him or her to describe, measure, understand, and, ideally, predict. In short, natural science approaches the problem through the immediate causes. For most biodiversity goods and services, there are no markets in the global and national economies. This problem has been very well documented and it is one of the most powerful root causes of biodiversity loss. In many countries, the efforts of different branches of the government result in environmental policies that, taken together, are uncoordinated and often contradictory.