While humanity has clearly been thriving, the biodiversity of our planet has been threatened, and with it our essential balance with nature. The damage to our environment becomes more and more obvious, as do the disasters looming should we continue to neglect the environment and its diverse inhabitants. Fortunately, it is precisely the ingenuity that enabled this destruction in the first place that is coming to the rescue: science and technology are offering insights and solutions to protect and foster biodiversity, from cloud seeding and tree-planting drones to cloning and DNA sequencing.
A State of Urgency
Scientists are calling it the sixth mass extinction: the five previous devastations of life on Earth were due to natural causes, the latest bringing dinosaurs to extinction; this ongoing sixth is the result of human activity. Wildlife population sizes have dropped by 60% over the last fifty years. Currently, more than five hundred species of land animals are on the brink of extinction and could be lost in the next two decades. This is not just true of animals – about a third of all land plants are at risk of extinction. There are roughly four main factors driving the loss of biodiversity: habitat loss and fragmentation, introduction of exotic species, pollution, and global climate change. Endangered species are not the only ones at risk, but all living beings, including us. From oxygen to clean water, we depend on the stability and diversity of nature’s ecosystems. Though scientists, environmentalists and politicians have rallied together to find solutions, it is the engineers and entrepreneurs who are leading the charge.
Maintaining and Managing Potected Areas
A main approach is maintaining and managing protected areas. First and foremost, this requires classifying as many fragile and ecologically rich land as protected areas. Since many of these regions experience altered weather patterns due to human activity, climate engineering attempts to counteract these disruptions. Cloud seeding is a state-of-the-art technique to prevent droughts in environments suffering from reduced rainfall. Companies like North Dakota’s Weather Modification disperse seeding agents into clouds to alter microphysical processes within the cloud.
Another solution for maintaining protected areas, which sounds simple in theory, is keeping humans out. Habitats are surprisingly good at recovering if human incursions are limited, and technology can help. In an effort to minimize human presence, both hostile and benign, motion-detection cameras are revolutionizing conservation. For example, the Zoological Society of London has partnered with Google to build the world’s first satellite-enabled camera trap against poaching and for remote monitoring of vulnerable species.
However, human presence in protected areas might actually provide precious data on plants and animals with the help of crowdsourcing: eight billion visitors a year in such areas worldwide produce innumerable photos. This information can be collected and analyzed using machine learning to identify species on the photos and their locations. For example, iNaturalist is a joint initiative by California Academy of Sciences and National Geographic allowing lay people, but also scientists and conservationists, to share biodiversity information.
Restoration Ecology and Bioremediation
Besides maintaining protected areas, science and technology is being increasingly employed to restore species and ecosystems. While drones can be used to monitor protected areas, they can play a more active role: tree-planting drones are being tested all around the world. They map an area and decide where trees need to be planted, then drop seeds in biodegradable pods. Using this method, the company BioCarbon Engineering has launched a massive mangrove-restoration project in Myanmar, thanks to which about ten million trees have already been planted.
But when it comes to remediation, biotechnology has granted us the ability not only to restore endangered species, but to bring back extinct ones. Cloning technology has the potential to reintroduce species and genetic diversity. Focusing on key-stone species could remedy unstable ecosystems. This solution is especially viable thanks to cryogenics, allowing us to freeze plant and animal germplasm. Cloning may sound like science fiction, but already in 2009, the world has witnessed the artificial birth of a Pyrenean ibex, which had been extinct for nine years!
A Profound Understanding of Biodiversity
Before any technological or political initiative can properly tackle the decline of biodiversity, a thorough scientific understanding of the situation is necessary. Biodiversity assessment is the first step in protecting the complete range of genetic diversity of species on Earth to assist conservation efforts. To this end, molecular sequencing is used to identify and map out the biodiversity. Companies like Illumina specialize in animal and plant DNA sequencing for environmental purposes.
Another kind of assessment focuses rather on human beings. Life cycle assessment (LCA) analyzes the environmental impact of a product, including its manufacturing, distribution, and use. The scientific community has called for the inclusion of biodiversity in LCA, and some companies have taken the initiative: Swiss-based Quantis is a sustainability consulting group advising businesses in environmental strategies who recognizes the important of the biodiversity factor for the market, for society, and for nature.
A profound understanding of the planet’s biodiversity and its health requires looking below ground as well as above. Soil biodiversity regards the variety of life in the soil, from species to the communities they form, as well as the ecological complexes to which they contribute and to which they belong. Though often overlooked, organisms in the soil are essential for the entire ecosystem and for human activity, from food provision to water filtration and the supply of medicine.
If there is any doubt about the importance and urgency of biodiversity, it is enough to consider the armies of scientists, conservationists, engineers, entrepreneurs, organizations, and politicians uniting forces to find solutions that will heal the planet and prevent an ever-nearing catastrophe. From cloud-seeding to cloning, the forefront of technology is recruited, but also society itself thanks to crowdsourcing – a reminder that a harmonious future depends on all of us.