REVERSING THE BIODIVERSITY CRISIS THROUGH CONSERVATION

• BY MARION SPÉE

Living beings are being threatened like never before. Of the 1.2 million known plant and animal species that inhabit the planet, one in eight faces extinction and several are dying every day.If the climate crisis, which is attracting more media coverage, is frightening and is leaving its mark (floods, heat waves, etc.), the loss of biodiversity is just as alarming. Moreover, the two issues are linked and have one thing in common: human activity.

"Alerting an increasingly urbanized world population to this issue is not simple," says Evelyne Daigle, educator and scientific designer at the Biosphère. When we are no longer in contact with nature, we sometimes forget all the services it provides us, starting with what we eat, what we drink and the air we breathe! The "One Health" approach strives to recognize the interconnection between the health of people, animals, plants and the environment we share.

Some people may wonder what difference it makes if a species of frog or bat goes extinct. It may be very abstract, but the maintenance of biodiversity is absolutely crucial. When one link in the chain is broken, the entire balance is jeopardized. This has effects on the environment, but also sometimes on the economy of a region.

A FINE BALANCE

For example, on the Pacific coast of North America, sea otters have long been hunted for their fur, to the point of extinction in some areas. The result? Sea urchins, their prey, have proliferated. They have largely reduced the forests of seaweed that serve as shelter for the larvae of fish or crabs. The latter could not reach their adult size, and fishermen could no longer catch them. This domino effect shows that by attacking one element, the cascade of events that follows is such that the entire chain is affected," says Évelyne Daigle. All living species play an important role; they are connected in unsuspected ways.

Another example? You might think that if a species of bat disappeared, it wouldn't keep you up at night. And yet… Some bats are insectivores: a colony of 300 bats can eat up to 20 million insects in a single summer. Some of these insects areharmful to corn crops. In other words, preserving bats could help reduce the use of pesticides in corn fields.

Photo: Shutterstock/Awana JF

THE CAUSES OF A WEAKENED BIODIVERSITY

But what is causing the loss of biodiversity? According to scientists there are five culprits, with the common denominator being human activity: habitat modification (fragmentation, destruction), pollution, overexploitation of biological resources (such as overfishing), invasive alien species, and of course climate change.

In Panama, for example, golden frogs are decimated by a fungus called chytrid," says Évelyne Daigle. So much so that the last time an individual was spotted in the wild was in 2007. According to scientists, this pathogen of European origin, introduced to America by humans, has seen its effects rise drastically due to the degradation of the golden frogs' natural habitat, pollution of waterways and droughts.

CONSERVATION AS A SAFEGUARD

Fortunately, the species has not disappeared from the face of the earth thanks to specific conservation programs. Along with about fifty other zoological institutions, the Biodôme helps to maintain a healthy population of golden frogs in captivity. It’s a kind of reserve. The goal? To reintroduce these creatures in their natural environment.

More locally, the wood turtle has been identified as vulnerable. Since 2014, the species has been part of a recovery plan overseen by Espace pour la vie and the Ministère des Forêts, de la Faune et des Parcs (MFFP). The goal is to increase its low survival rate during its first year. The principle is simple: the MFFP teams collect and hatch the eggs. The babies are then transferred to the Biodôme for one or two years, where they are fed and monitored by an animal care team and reach a weight deemed sufficient. The turtles are then released back into the wild, near their nesting site.

The time has come to question our choices and to change those that are within our reach to help preserve biodiversity. For example, we can opt for bulk products or avoid single-use plastic to limit pollution in the oceans that injure or suffocate many marine animals. We can also choose spreads without palm oil, and thus make life easier for orangutans who see their forests in Indonesia go up in smoke because of palm oil plantations. "We all have a role to play in protecting biodiversity," says Évelyne Daigle.