Five Takeaways from the Latest UN Report on Biodiversity and Why It Matters to All of Us

A UN report released earlier this week warned that we are headed for a catastrophic loss of biodiversity, with up to a million different species of plants and animals facing extinction. The authors of the report concluded that if we don’t do something now to avert this planetary crisis, the loss will have a drastic impact on life as humans know it.

These reports can be overwhelming in nature (no pun intended) and give us the sense that we’re all doomed, so we’ve honed in on five key takeaways from the report that you need to know:

4We Rely on Pollinators for Food

Save Bee Pollinator Biodiversity

Insects are easily overlooked in the grand scheme of biodiversity loss. While the images of whales washing up onto beaches pulls at our heartstrings, the loss of pollinators — notably, of honeybees — will have a direct impact on our everyday lives. Nearly a third of our domestic food production depends upon the robust presence of pollinators. Florida Today cited figures from the U.S. Department of Agriculture estimating that pollinators contribute upwards of $24 billion to the economy each year.