The diversity of life on Earth — biodiversity — provides us with a range of benefits and underpins essential ecosystems services. Biodiversity also has inherent value and deserves to be recognized, appreciated and conserved for its own sake.  We need to protect biodiversity and use it in a sustainable way.

Healthy ecosystems support healthy people, animals and plants, as well as a healthy economy.  Healthy ecosystems give us:

• Plants that make oxygen for us to breathe
• Soil for growing crops and trees
• Bees and other insects that pollinate the plants we use for food and other purposes
• Wood for building materials and paper
• Fibres for clothing
• Forests and wetlands that help control floods and disease, and clean our water and air
• Sources of medicine
• A stabilized and moderated climate
• A beautiful world to enjoy and explore