Why should teenagers care about biodiversity and how to preserve it?
By Francine Hou
Abstract: How do teenagers look at biodiversity conservation? What actions do teenagers take to preserve biodiversity in their daily lives? On the occasion of the second part of CBD COP15, the International Department of China Biodiversity Conservation and Green Development Foundation (CBCGDF) jointly organized the Youth Biodiversity Forum with Canadian senior professor Frederick Charles Dubee, and invited outstanding primary and secondary school students at home and abroad to share their knowledge, understanding and actions on biodiversity conservation, and to listen to their voices. Frederick Charles Dubee, Former Senior Officer of Executive Office of the United Nations Secretary General and International Consultant of CBCGDF, presided over the forum. Francine Hou, a student from King’s College Hangzhou School in China, said at this forum, “humanity won’t survive without biodiversity.” From the perspective of the teenager of the new generation, she articulates an understanding of biodiversity based on species invasion cases and ecosystem damage, calling on everyone, no matter how old or how young, to get together and save our ecosystems before it’s too late.
Key words: CBD COP15, teenager participation, ecosystem, biodiversity
Francine Hou. Why should teenagers care about biodiversity and how to preserve it?. Biodiversity Conservation and Green Development. Volume 1, Issue 13. December 2022. ISSN2749-9065
Why do teenagers care about biodiversity? To put it shortly, it’s our future.
But who cares if another Saola died. Most people don’t even know what it is, let alone worry about them. However, a few animals will lead to an entire species, and an entire species will lead to an entire ecosystem, before you know it, we’re living on a lifeless planet of nothing but dust. Furthermore, my generation or the current teenagers will soon be the ones populating this dying planet unless we make a drastic change.
Our biosphere is very connected. This isn’t an individual rabbit, it’s part of a population, and this population is part of a bigger community, and together it forms the ecosystem which we are all a part of. When a tree is burned down, it not only affects the organisms around it but the entire biosphere. Like in this slide where deforestation in somewhere like South America for example ends up affecting the polar bears in the Arctic. Therefore, decreasing biodiversity will not only hurt the ecosystems but humans as well.
Another reason why humans need to care about biodiversity is that it provides everything we need to survive and evolve. Nature has the cure for everything. According to Marthur and Hoskins in 2017, “Natural products have been acknowledged for numerous years as a vital source of active ingredients in therapeutic agents.” Take quinine for example, it’s a type of prescription medicine with many uses like killing malaria parasites, yet it originates from Peruvian bark. There are many other examples of this, and likely more that haven’t been discovered yet. So far there are still illnesses like cancer that have no cure but what if the solution lies in one of the endangered plant species. We would never know if the organism goes extinct.
The final reason why we should care about biodiversity is that if we don’t protect it, our descendants, our children and grandchildren will never be able to go on nature walks or pick flowers. There are so many beautiful experiences they will never get to try out. My generation has already missed out on a lot, because unlike my parents I never got to see wild chickens or eat flowers ( which is somewhat questionable). Even if humanity won’t need animals and plants to survive it would still be an depressing situation if our descendants never get to see a real animal in their lives. Thus we current inhabitants of Earth cannot be inconsiderate and put current needs before the wellbeing of the future occupants.
After all that’s been said, we can all agree that biodiversity cannot be put lightly, but how can teenagers like us help? Unfortunately we may not have the power to stop deforestation or the privilege of saving baby polar bears but there are still minor ways to assist it the movement.
The first one is very important. Don’t relocate any organisms. Our ecosystems have evolved for millions of years. Every single organism fits in like a puzzle . However, if this balance is disrupted, the consequences are dire. The non-native grey squirrels in UK is a typical case of the harm that invasive species bring. When the grey squirrels were brought to the UK from North America it immediately killed off the majority of the local red squirrel population. This was because it ended up increasing competition for food and habitats whilst being much bigger and more competent than local squirrels. These invasive species has posed a great threat on the UK’s local ecosystems and according to Biosecurity Minister Lord Gardiner: “Invasive non-native species, including the grey squirrel, not only challenge the survival of our rarest species but damage some of our most sensitive ecosystems, costing the economy more than £1.7 billion per year.”
Another way we can help protect biodiversity is by educating others about it. It’s fairly common to find people damaging the ecosystem simply because they didn’t know or didn’t know enough to care. For example:. This very second, there are hundreds of trees being burned down in rainforests so that locals can plant rubber trees. Take Laos for example, From 2001 to 2021, Laos lost 4.05Mha of tree cover, equivalent to a 21% decrease in tree cover. That might not sound like much until you realize how many trees were killed and animals forced out of their homes. The worst part is that once the rubber trees are planted , it would only take a few years before they completely die off due the poor soil quality and unsustainable farming. In the end, the locals’ attempt at boosting their economy not only damaged millions of hectares of wildlife, but also led to financial loss. Some of these locals aren’t evil or selfish, they just don’t realize the harm they’ve done, and the ones that appear not to care probably don’t know enough about the consequences of deforestation.
That’s why educating people, especially the younger generation is essential in protecting our planet. This has already been accomplished with some success, because of the fact that I’m here with other teenagers sharing our thoughts about biodiversity today, shows that we’ve been successfully educated about this worldwide crisis.
Humanity won’t survive without biodiversity. That’s why everyone, no matter how old or how young needs to get together and save our ecosystems before it’s too late.