The intricate, woven webs that hold nature together may be at risk of unraveling from human actions like plastic pollution, deforestation, overfishing and development. These pressures are placing one million species at risk of extinction in the next few decades, and this will have serious consequences both for ecosystems and humans (because we too are animals and part of the ecosystem even when we feel like we have ‘conquered’ nature).
The ultimate answer to the question about why biodiversity matters is fairly simple: the rest of the living world can get along without us, but we can’t get along without it. Without nature, there is no future for us. When nature is in trouble, so are we.