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We Need a Biological Archive for Climate Change
How to protect global biodiversity through biobanking and CryoArks
“A Race We Can Win” is the tagline of the upcoming 2019 UN Climate Action Summit. Much of the conversation surrounding the summit focuses on halting the effects of climate change on humans. If we reduce our emissions, if we have just two children, if we mobilize the youth, we can “win the race.” Nestled between common sense plans like mitigation and adaptation, the summit is also looking at what are called Nature-Based Solutions (NBS). The NBS work plan focuses on agriculture and food supply systems, regenerating land and water ecosystems, and the “enabling of all people to connect to nature.” Its key measure is to strengthen the connection between people and communities and the natural world, “aspiring for a harmonious coexistence between the two.”
However, in all of the little over three pages of actionable steps from the Nature-Based Solutions plan, we don’t see the extent of the biodiversity crisis at the frontlines of climate change. Which is a problem — if the biodiverse Earth we know and heavily rely on to survive was the Titanic, and climate change was the iceberg, then we should be looking at the lifeboats right about now.
Theoretically, conservation and climate action go hand in hand. On paper, when it comes to actionable policies, it’s a different matter. The World Wildlife Fund’s (WWF) most recent “Living Planet Report” points out that despite numerous international scientific studies and policy agreements confirming that biological diversity is a global priority, worldwide trends in biodiversity continue to decline.
The report shows a drop in wildlife populations of 53% in the past 40 years. The proverbial iceberg has already hit (or in the case of arctic animals, the iceberg is melting beneath them).
So you hear that the Earth needs to protect biodiversity, but how does that biodiversity affect humans? Tiffany Yap, a scientist at the Center for Biological Diversity, explains that preserving biodiversity gives people a safety net by nurturing ecosystems…
