Biodiversity, or biological diversity, refers to the variety and variability of life on Earth at all its levels, from genes to ecosystems. It encompasses the diversity of species, ecosystems, and genetic variation within species. Biodiversity is important because it supports everything in nature that we need to survive, such as food, clean water, medicine, and shelter. It also provides crucial services such as pollination, seed dispersal, climate regulation, water purification, nutrient cycling, and control of agricultural pests. Biodiversity has cultural value to humans as well, for spiritual or religious reasons, for instance.

Biodiversity is under threat due to human activities, such as habitat destruction, pollution, climate change, and overexploitation of natural resources. The loss of biodiversity can speed up extinction, and many species are facing an uncertain future. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) keeps a Red List of endangered species, which is an important indicator of the health of the worlds biodiversity. Currently, more than 41,000 species are listed as threatened with extinction, which is 28% of all assessed species.

To protect biodiversity, we need to rethink how were using natural resources, ease the pressure, and allow ecosystems to recover. The United Nations Biodiversity Conference in December 2022 ended with a global agreement to halt the degradation of biodiversity with the adoption of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) outlining worldwide actions to be taken to secure our life support system.