Biodiversity
The earth supports an incredible array of biodiversity - from Thailand’s tiny bumblebee bat to the
ocean’s great blue whale — with plants and animals of all shapes and sizes in between.
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Camouflaged by its rocky surroundings, this
leopard in Namibia is among the thousands of
animals worldwide that are threatened with
extinction.
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This fantastic variety of life is found in diverse habitats ranging from the hottest desert to tropical
rainforests to the arctic tundra. Biodiversity is essential to every aspect of the way that humans live
around the world. Plants and animals provide people with food and medicine, trees play an important role in
absorbing greenhouse gases and cleaning the air we breathe, and rivers and watersheds provide the clean
water that we drink.
Unfortunately, the earth’s biodiversity is disappearing, with an estimated 1,000 species per year
becoming extinct. Conserving biodiversity is especially crucial in developing countries where people’s
livelihoods are directly dependent on natural resources such as forests, fisheries and wildlife.
In recognition of the importance of biodiversity, USAID has made biodiversity conservation a key goal under
its program to protect the environment. USAID is supporting conservation activities in 64 countries,
seeking to maintain the variety of species and the ecosystems in which they occur.
USAID is working with communities, non-governmental organizations, and governments to develop environmental
policies and management practices that conserve biodiversity and, at the same time, sustain local
livelihoods. This can involve empowering communities to become stronger actors in the management of
resources. USAID also invests in building the capacity of foreign governments, non-governmental
organizations, and communities to better manage protected areas. In addition, USAID is promoting
enterprise-based conservation initiatives (such as eco-tourism), which provide economic benefits from the
preservation of biological resources. To complement these activities, USAID fosters greater public awareness
of conservation issues by supporting the development of outreach and environmental education programs.
USAID’s biodiversity conservation activities not only protect the environment in developing countries
but also have significant economic value to the United States. The extinction of each additional species
results in the irreversible loss of unique genetic materials, each of which has potential for development
of medicines and foods and associated enterprises that create jobs. As natural systems breakdown, people
around the world are forced to find alternative and often more costly ways to maintain adequate supplies of
clean water or to deal with increasingly polluted air. The net economic benefits of biodiversity are
estimated to be at least $3 trillion per year, or 11 percent of the annual world economic output.
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