Enhance Biodiversity and Sustainability in Agriculture, Aquaculture, Fisheries and Forestry
Ensure that areas under agriculture, aquaculture, fisheries and forestry are managed sustainably, in particular through the sustainable use of biodiversity, including through a substantial increase of the application of biodiversity-friendly practices, such as sustainable intensification, agroecological and other innovative approaches, contributing to the resilience and long-term efficiency and productivity of these production systems, and to food security, conserving and restoring biodiversity and maintaining nature’s contributions to people, including ecosystem functions and services.
Providing food and things to 8 Billion people, and tiny grains of time.
Biodiversity is a winner. We beat it down, but it keeps on going. That’s no wonder. It has adapted to different conditions since life first began some 3.5 billion years ago. Consider that number: 3.5 billion. Easy to say but almost impossible to grasp. Maybe like this: if you added a grain of sand to a bathtub each year, you’d have about four full tubs today. In other words, nature is patient. It has had plenty of time to experiment and evolve.
The biodiversity around us is far younger. It was in full bloom around 40 million years ago – also a fairly long time. If that was a single year, we would have figured out agriculture just a couple of hours before New Year’s Eve.
In the 12,000 years since we did, our skills at harvesting food have accelerated year by year. The same is true for fishing. We are skillfully emptying the oceans. In addition, we have learned to farm fish. Are we hungry, or what? Other resource extraction has been industrialized as well. Wood. Essential. Are we good at cutting down those trees, or what?!
But here’s the thing: there are limits to how big a wrecking ball we can swing. Besides, are we not supposed to appreciate generosity? Biodiversity keeps on giving, but we are ruthless exploitors. Still, everything has a breaking point. Which brings us to this target.
Depleting our resources is just plain dumb. It’s like a parent eating all the food and bemoaning to their kids, “Sorry, but I had to.”
But you didn’t. You could have been wiser. You could have been kinder. You could have respected the gift. All you had to do was to slow down a bit. Been less greedy.
Let’s show the world that we are as smart as we think we are. Nature needs some time. Take care of it. Don’t poison it. Be kind to biodiversity, it is giving us our lives. If we just let it, that is.