Diversity is life, uniformity is death

 Danilo Anton

 Widespread processes of environmental degradation are taking place throughout the world. The effects of human action have been profound and cumulative. Earth’s atmosphere is being modified, introducing uncertainties about potential consequences, which could be life threatening. Water is being contaminated on every continent, in coastal areas, and even in the open ocean. Simultaneously, the principal fish species are being exploited far beyond replacement levels, introducing profound disturbances in the main aquatic ecosystems. Elimination of vegetation is promoting widespread erosion, changes in hydrological regimes, and, frequently, floods and droughts in areas in which they were previously unknown. “Scars” that are often irreversible are being produced by mining operations, as well as by quarrying for building construction or engineering works such as highways or dams.

The combined effects of these processes are affecting many species of plants and animals, which are finding it increasingly difficult to survive in a changing environment to which they have not had time to adapt. As a result of human activity, the equilibrium of ecosystems is

being altered and widespread modifications of their species compositions and interspecific relations are taking place. A main consequence of the deterioration of the physical and biological support of ecosystems is the general loss of biodiversity — both number of species and varieties.

Along with this biological impoverishment, social and economic standardization are rapidly reducing the richness of the world’s hundreds of cultures and resulting in the loss of a huge volume of knowledge about nature that has been accumulated over many generations. Macroeconomic trends are forcing local communities into high-productivity, monospecific agriculture or raising animals for commercial purposes, replacing the enormous range of traditional crop and animal varieties by a few that meet the conditions for short-term competitiveness imposed by globalized international markets.

In much the same way in which species and varieties are becoming extinct, languages, beliefs, traditions, empirical knowledge, and whole environmental-management systems are being wiped from the face of the Earth by a shortsighted, mainstream culture that does not offer appropriate substitutes for the sustainable long-term strategies that are often part of the older and more experienced cultures.

The human and biological diversity that is under attack represents the bulk of the planet’s natural and human resource base; reducing diversity will result in a gradual loss of options for the future, not only for the current generations, but also for the many to come.

Resources for the future

Although we have only incomplete knowledge about current diversities, both biological and cultural, we do know that some will become resources in the future. Perhaps the flower of a certain plant contains a

substance that can be used to produce a drug to treat a serious disease that does not even exist yet. Maybe the shamans of a micronation in the Amazon know about a plant that produces a glue that is 100 times stronger than anything now known. Maybe this traditional group has a logical approach to environmental management of its particular ecosystem that can be applied elsewhere. The possibilities are infinite.

All species have the potential to become resources; all present resources were part of diverse assortments in the past. We cannot know which elements are going to become resources. Societies possess a range of potential resources today, but are experiencing a number of pressures — some of them of a productive nature — that are having the effect of destroying these resources.

How can we protect our future resources? There is only one way: by protecting today’s diversities. Highly diverse environments are full of potential resources that must be protected. Although low-diversity environments probably have fewer potential resources, they must also be protected because we do not know their nature and potential. In other words, all diversities must be protected. The overriding aim should be to ensure not only the well-being of today’s societies, but also that the wealth of the future is not depleted.

Diverstity of living systems

Diversity is the main resource of life. The future of living systems is a result of multiple current options. Diversity provides flexibility. It ensures that, even if some roads are blocked here and there, there will be alternative ways for life to continue. Uniformity is anti-life. Uniformity imparts vulnerability by not allowing other options. It can only be sustained with great investment and effort and, in the end, leads to extinction. Diversity is life; uniformity is death.

Living systems base their survival on continuous, selective adjustments resulting from small biological variations, genetic mutation, changes in relations in their ecosystems, and the behaviour of species, societies, and individuals. Living systems evolve in a subtly coordinated, dynamic equilibrium among thousands of diverse organisms with diverse functions that ensure the sustainability of the systems.

The elimination or modification of any component of a living system, inorganic or organic, produces changes that require a general readjustment of the system. In practice, it is difficult to know what changes will take place when one species disappears or a physical component varies; however, we do know for certain that changes will occur. Change is intrinsic to all processes and systems.

Because of the complexity of natural ecosystems, it is practically impossible to inventory all their components and still more difficult to define precisely their relations. However, although we do not know exactly how any system works, we can safely state that the strength and stability of any living system depends on the depth of its diversities and on its degree of diversity. Depth of diversity is the history that generated and allowed the development of the system’s diversities, and degree of diversity is the level of differentiation or dissimilarity developed by a given system compared with others, both locally and globally. The natural tendency of local systems is to maintain their degree of diversity and to increase their depth or historical richness. Humans may obstruct these processes. For our own future we should preserve and even estimulate the healthy growth of global and local diversities.

From the book "Diversity, Globalization and the Ways of Nature" of Danilo Anton, IDRC Books, Ottawa, Canada