Home
Biodiversity

About This Collection

Biodiversity refers to the variety of life in the world or in a particular habitat or ecosystem. It is necessary for life to thrive on Earth.

Aldo Leopold, one of the great thinkers of conservation, observed more than half a century ago the importance of protecting species. "To keep every cog and wheel is the first precaution of intelligent tinkering," he wrote. Losing species is like throwing away one by one the engine parts of an airplane while flying.

Biodiversity is a major initiative of Conservation International.

Biodiversity conservation provides substantial benefits to meet immediate human needs, such as those for clean, consistent water flows; protection from floods and storms; and a stable climate. 

Curated by mokiethecat

San Pedro River
August 14, 2018
Flowing through the arid desert borderlands of Arizona and Sonora, Mex., the San Pedro is more than a river. It's a damned miracle More than 80 species of mammals — including jaguars, coatis, pumas, bears, ocelots and bats — call the San Pedro River Basin home; add to that Sonoran tiger salamanders and western barking frogs; imperiled yellow-billed cuckoos; more than 250 species of migratory birds; and incredible native fish species such as the Gila chub, the longfin dace, the desert sucker and the roundtail chub, and you realize why one of the last undammed rivers in the Southwest needs to be protected. Love wildlife and wild places? Join the Center for Biological Diversity's e-list of activists, citizen scientists and animal lovers here: https://bit.ly/2qE6gBz The San Pedro River is drying up. Unsustainable pumping of the groundwater that supports it has caused base flows to decline by 67 percent since the 1940s. The current population of more than 50,000 people in the upper basin is pumping thousands of acre-feet (billions of gallons) more out of the aquifer each year than are recharged by rainwater. By 2020, the deficit is projected to reach 13,000 acre-feet (4.2 billion gallons) annually. The burgeoning water deficit is caused by unsustainable population growth and a lack of effective water-conservation planning. Footage by Russ McSpadden