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Humans are an integral part of a delicate web of life, which has developed over mil-lions of years. Species – humans, plants, animals, insects, birds and other living or-ganisms – have evolved in response to each other and to changing conditions. Interacting with each other and with air, soil and water, species make up ecosys-tems and collectively form the web of life upon which we depend entirely.
When an ecosystem is in balance, each species often plays a particular role that helps keep this balance. Scientific studies have shown that the higher the diversity of living organisms in an ecosystem – or in another term: the higher the biodiversity – the easier it is for the ecosystem to main-tain or return to a balanced state if it has been disturbed. With rich biodiversity, the system thus also maintains its functions such as for example water retention capacity in wetlands, storage of carbon dioxide (CO2) in peat-lands and forests, and feeding and nursing grounds for the natural production of fish in our oceans.

Millions of organisms, plants and animals hence not only surround us, but support us every day in the most concrete sense through what we eat, breathe and drink, what our immune system repels and through what inspires our artists, engineers and each of us as individuals.
Unfortunately, there is a but to this won-derful story of life: It has taken us, hu-mans, a long time to just begin to under-stand the functions of species and ecosys-tems and the role, they play in sustaining our lives. Currently, we are causing biodi-versity to diminish at an unnaturally high rate almost everywhere on our planet, and many of the most productive ecosystems are losing their functions.
The current loss of biodiversity is about more than endangered pandas and extinct river dolphins. It threatens the long-term prosperity and security of billions of people. We know what is causing the loss. We know how to slow it, and we know how to reverse it. Yet each of the pressures directly driving the decline of biodiversity continues unchecked, or is even increasing in inten-sity.
This brochure, that complements the exhi-bition “Nature – Our Precious Net” is about the intricate web of life that sustains life on Earth and what we can do to keep it.
Biological diversity, or biodiversity, is the term used to describe the enormous variety of plants, animals and organisms found on the planet.
It also covers genetic variations within species, which can be ex-tremely significant for the survival of healthy populations. For example, cultivated rice belongs to only two species, but includes more than 120,000 genetically distinct vari-eties.
Finally, biodiversity also describes the variety of ecosystems such as deserts, forests, wetlands, grass-lands, rivers, oceans and croplands.