Key drivers of species loss (4)

What can we do to help?

• Buy fewer products and only those that have minimal impact on biodiversity
• Invest in ways that promote nature (change your bank account or pension)
• Reduce, reuse, recycle, recover, repair your clothes and electrical items
• Educate children about biodiversity, ecosystems and the threats they face and the opportunities to restore them.
• Try to eat less fish, meat and dairy

If you have a garden:

• Avoid mowing the grass in May so pollinators have something to eat
• Avoid using pesticides
• Avoid trimming hedges from March to August when birds are nesting
• Create wildlife corridors and bug hotels

What do you think?

• Should the crime of mass damage and destruction of ecosystems (Ecocide) be made an arrestable offence?
• Should our gardens and public spaces be allowed to grow a bit more wild?

What else can be done?

There is a growing consensus that we should listen more to indigenous communities who have a much better connection with, and understanding of, the natural world around them. And we should strengthen their land rights to protect them from extractive industries and developers. (5) Many companies are destroying or polluting our shared natural world without consequence – they rake in the profits while the rest of us are left with the costs. This should be taken into account when assessing the cost and value of the things we produce. (6)

We need new ways of farming, using land for different purposes. Exactly how we do that is currently much debated. Tackling climate change by reducing carbon emissions and absorbing carbon will be an essential route to reducing biodiversity loss. We can help by supporting political action committed to protecting and restoring biodiversity, supporting institutions that promote the protection and restoration of nature and supporting local and regional projects aimed at tackling biodiversity loss.