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The Future of Sustainability: Have Your Say! Week One - “Global Challenges to Sustainability in the Twenty-First Century”
Human sustainability could only be achieved if the grassroots of every corner of the world are mobilized to conserve their backyard biodiversity (defined as biodiversity, the basic natural resources and capital for sustainable development, in and around the backyards where people inhabit and make their living). With continued increase of human population, with annually adding >90 million people to the crowd of 6.5 billion people, on our planet, we must increase the knowledge base of global biodiversity as our current knowledge barely accounted for less than 20% of what currently extant that is rapidly being depleted worldwide. Our knowledge of 1.75 million species took over 250 years of science and contemporary approach to exploration and documentation would not work for the needs of expanding human population. To expand out knowledge we will need new science and technology for the 21st century. Exploration and documentation of global biodiversity must begin at the grassroots level by local economic and scientific infrastructures supported by people and the knowledge on the backyard biodiversity should the basic resources for local ecosystem services and production which should be the basis upon which sustainable development is built for local environmental and human sustainability. Here, sustainable development and biodiversity conservation must be carefully linked to provide the basis for economic and environmental wellbeing of the local people. Considering that biodiversity hotspots are located in developing and underdeveloped countries, to facilitate such challenges for conservation of backyard biodiversity national and regional political and economic regimes along with international organizations must focus on building local educational and technical infrastructure in taxonomy and biodiversity for exploration, documentation and conservation of biodiversity At the grassroots which should help enhance basic environmental education, local economic enterprises, and clean environment. Advancement of local taxonomy of backyard biodiversity is a productive way to expand our knowledge of global biodiversity at a much faster rate. Economic wellbeing and healthy environment are rights and goals of every humans irrespective of what continent or country they live. From the perspective of the ggrassroots backyard biodiversity is the basic resources for sustainability, not just a location of endangered or rare species. Exploration, documentation and conservation (EDC) of backyard biodiversity by trained local biodiversity expertise is the basis for economic and environmental wellbeing for the people at the grassroots which is applicable those in underdeveloped to developed countries. All these enterprises for EDC of backyard biodiversity will involve every one in every sectors of society and help advance science eduation worldwide. |