Sustainability

Biodiversity

The word "biodiversity" was coined in 1988 by Edward O. Wilson, entomologist, and has become common parlance since the 1992 Earth Summit. Biodiversity means the wealth composed of the whole of the genetic information of the living organisms that live in different climatic regions and habitats. Biodiversity originates from the evolutionary process that generated, through natural selection and over the centuries, all the living animal and vegetal species. Due to the fast and indiscriminate exploitation of natural resources, many living species (both animal and vegetal) have disappeared, while many others are at risk. More and more species are disappearing all over the world, much faster than it takes new species to appear. According to the 1995 Global Biodiversity Assessment (GBA) presented by the United Nations Environment Programme  (UNEP), 112 species of mammals disappeared between 1810 and 1995, three times as much as those disappeared between 1600 and 1810. As regards the disappearance of invertebrates, fish and plants, we are talking thousands of species.