Look to Pacific Islands to Address the Biodiversity Crisis

A recent 1,500 page U.N. report, theIPBES Global Assessment, delivered grim news for our world’s biodiversity on May 6. The most comprehensive assessment to date found over 1 million species are at risk of extinction and that the current global response is insufficient. The cause of this decline? Humans. We are altering the Earth so drastically that we are threatening the species and ecosystems we depend on for survival.

However, there is hope.

“The Report also tells us that it is not too late to make a difference, but only if we start now at every level from local to global,” said IPBES Chair, Sir Robert Watson. “Through ‘transformative change’, nature can still be conserved, restored and used sustainably – this is also key to meeting most other global goals. By transformative change, we mean a fundamental, system-wide reorganization across technological, economic and social factors, including paradigms, goals and values.”