• Ozone Depletion

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• Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD)
  
   

St Vincent and the Grenadines signed on to the Convention on Biological Diversity on 3rd June, 1996.

Defining Biodiversity

Biodiversity is defined as “the variability among living organisms from all sources including, inter alia, terrestrial, marine and other aquatic ecosystems and the ecological complexes of which they are part; this includes diversity within species, between species and of ecosystems.” The importance of this definition is that it draws attention to the many dimensions of biodiversity. It explicitly recognizes that every biota can be characterized by its taxonomic, ecological, and genetic diversity and that the way these dimensions of diversity vary over space and time is a key feature of biodiversity. Thus only a multidimensional assessment of biodiversity can provide insights into the relationship between changes in biodiversity and changes in ecosystem functioning and ecosystem services. Biodiversity is the foundation of ecosystem services to which human well-being is intimately linked. Biodiversity includes all ecosystems – managed or unmanaged.

What factors lead to biodiversity loss?

Biodiversity change is caused by a range of drivers. A driver is any natural or human-induced factor that directly causes a change in an ecosystem. Changes in biodiversity and in ecosystem are almost always caused by multiple, interacting drivers. Changes are driven by combinations of drivers that work over time (such as population growth, climate change, natural disasters) or level of organisation (such as zoning laws) and that happen intermittently (such as droughts, economic crises).

St Vincent and the Grenadines submitted its Fifth National Biodiversity Report in 2015.