SDG #15 - Life on Land

Dashboard map for 2022 SDG Index Goal #15 ratings. Data source: sdgindex.org

You and the Global Goals: SDG #15 - Life on Land

Mean area that is protected in terrestrial sites important to biodiversity (%) Biodiversity is the variability of life on Earth. What happens without the richness of biodiversity in the form of healthy populations of myriad species? What other species beside our own could drive a million species to the bleeding precipice of extinction? What in our lives is worthy of this cost? Why are we all complicit in extinction, both of our own kind, and millions of others? Unless you lived in a Third World country, your lifestyle - innocuous and well-intentioned - has left the planet worse off than when you got here. You partook in agriculture and were a cog and beneficiary in the consumption and production of the global economy. Other lifeforms are in a more precarious state than when you found them. The Convention on Biological Diversity is the treaty adopted at the 1992 Earth Summit, the same UN conference adopting the UNFCCC. The Convention on Biological Diversity treaty ought to be a central pillar of our societies and governance, yet to most governments, it is a footnote. The biodiversity Goal's, #14 and 15, get my vote for being among the most under-served of the Goals. We are in deep shit when it comes to biodiversity loss, and the outcome thus far is among the most tragic. It’s sad enough we’re unable to lend a hand to three-quarters of a billion individuals of our own species living on less than $2 a day. It’s quite another matter again to take a broad swath of life with you on the path to extinction. Tragically, there appears to be some sort of an innate mechanism within our species allowing us to ruin our ability to perpetuate. Some may consider the following sacrilege, but if fate holds humanity to wipe itself out in the coming century or two, I’m uncertain planet Earth will miss us much. “Good riddance,” I would’ve thought would be closer to the sentiment. Such an outcome would see the end of the geological epoch of the Anthropocene, whereby one species i.e., humans, dominated so much, geologists monikered a geological span after us. I want to ask you to reflect on how you feel about animals and plants, the world around you which fits into the definition of nature. Other species are more vulnerable than us. Even the monarchs of the jungles, savannah, and oceans - lions, tigers, and sharks - are vulnerable to human technologies able to kill from afar. Does the destruction of swaths of the planet - habitats of endangered species - cause heartbreak within you? If the answer is no, why not? A different disconnect altogether is when humanity cuts down an old-growth forest for forestry production. It goes to pulp processing, manufactured into our cereal boxes, or newly built homes. We'll knock the home down in 15 years anyway, as the housing stock changes over to catch up with a more modern style. I bet each of us seldom thinks about these things. Even if we sometimes do, we can somehow make wild gymnastics of logic to ourselves, identifying as a tree-hugging greenie, yet also building a new house with fresh timber. It’s classic human behaviour. Humans equate natural resources as resources for utility and consumption in the context of economic growth in tandem with a pattern of environmental degradation. Life is a commodity to us. What’s the answer? With SDG #15 languishing as it is, we have to be missing something heretofore we’ve been neglecting within ourselves. The Anthropocene extinction is happening right now, and has been for many years, but we instead live reactively according to daily news headlines. The prescription is the same as its counterpart for marine Key Biodiversity Areas in Goal #14. Contact your government to demand the protection of terrestrial Key Biodiversity Areas. Summary: Contact your government representative overseeing terrestrial protected areas in your country or state, req