Scientists from the University of Minnesota and McGill University in Canada have said humanity is abandoning its life support systems as we increase the size and depth of our footprint on the planet. Policy makers driving changes aren’t paying adequate attention to the impacts of human activity on other living things, they say. Because we depend on plants and animals for food, shelter, clean air and water and more, anything we do that makes life harder for them eventually comes around to make life harder for us as well.

Reporting in a special biodiversity issue of the scientific journal Nature, the researchers said that, while human activity has squeezed global biodiversity to the brink of collapse, and that humans are presiding over a mass extinction that some scientists believe is a ‘planetary boundary’ (an irreversible tipping point that will make life as we know it impossible for humans) that has already been crossed, the McGill and Minnesota scientists believe that all is not yet lost.

Forest Isbell, of University of Minnesota's College of Biological Sciences, McGill biologist Andrew Gonzalez and coauthors from eight countries on four continents provided an overview of what we know and still need to learn about the impacts of habitat destruction, overhunting, the introduction of nonnative species, and other human activities on biodiversity. In addition, they summarised previous research on how biodiversity loss affects nature and the benefits nature provides - for example, a recent study showing that reduced diversity in tree species in forests is linked to reduced wood production. Synthesising findings of other studies, they estimated that the value humans derive from biodiversity is 10 times what every country in the world put together spends on conservation today - suggesting that additional investments in protecting species would not only reduce biodiversity loss but provide economic benefit, too.

"Human activities are driving the sixth mass extinction in the history of life on Earth, despite the fact that diversity of life enhances many benefits people reap from nature, such as wood from forests, livestock forage from grasslands, and fish from oceans and streams," said Isbell, who was the paper’s lead author. "It would be wise to invest much more in conserving biodiversity."

"Biodiversity plays a big role in the UN Sustainable Development Goals that aim to ensure human wellbeing in the long-term" said Gonzalez. "Attaining the UN Sustainable Development Goals will require action to conserve and restore biodiversity from local to global scales".