Entangled in the Web of Life: Biodiversity and the Media

This 4-page briefing explains why biodiversity loss will be an increasingly important story in the coming years. It suggests ways for journalists to improve their reporting and make it mean more to their audiences.

The briefing states that the media has under-reported the environmental challenge of reversing biodiversity loss, partly because researchers and policymakers have failed to communicate the issues in a way that is relevant to most people. It claims that "media coverage does not match the scale of the problem, not least because the term ‘biodiversity’ is itself poorly understood.... Journalists need to gear up to tell this story better by learning more about the issues and framing them in ways that make sense to their audiences. Researchers and policymakers must also do more to explain the importance of nature to people, using jargon-free language and examples that help make the issues real....Key to successful communication will be an ability to show that people are part of biodiversity, reliant on its richness and deeply affected by its loss. This will grow in importance in the coming years, as major international storylines unfold and climate change takes hold."

Strategies for journalists include the following:

* provide a positive parallel to the disaster narrative, one that highlights the economic and social benefits of preserving the natural world, including analysing whether conservation initiatives or apparently biodiversity-friendly products are fair or truly sustainable, who stands to gain from them, who are the custodians of biodiversity that have a wealth of relevant traditional knowledge, and whether the have a say in deciding what is important to save, and how to conserve and make best use of it.
* tell stories that relate the wealth of nature to people’s everyday lives, using the lenses of money, human rights, international politics, climate change, health, and religion.

An example given is the story of the economic value of the natural goods and services mangroves provide. "[L]ocal communities have for generations obtained food, medicines and building materials from the mangroves. Many species of commercially important fish breed among the mangrove trees’ submerged roots and the forests help to remove toxins from rivers before they enter the sea. The trees also protect coastal areas from the force of cyclones and tidal surges. Research has shown that the economic value of the natural goods and services mangroves provide is many times greater than what their conversion to agriculture or shrimp farming would bring. Sadly, it took the devastation wrought by the 2004 tsunami in the Indian Ocean for many policymakers to realise the risks of mangrove deforestation."

The document recommends that journalists follow future stories on:
* The European Union and the German government are undertaking a Stern Review-style economics-based assessment. The results will be published at the end of 2009. (Editor's note: The Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change is a report released in 2006 by economist Lord Stern for the British government, which discusses the effect of climate change and global warming on the world economy.)
* Parties to the United Nations (UN) Convention on Biodiversity (CBD) have set themselves a 2010 deadline to build mechanisms to ensure fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising from access to genetic resources.
* The CBD has also set a 2010 deadline for stemming the loss of biodiversity, and this aim has since been incorporated into the UN Millennium Development Goals.
* Parties to the CBD have pledged to create a global network of terrestrial protected areas by 2010 and of marine protected areas by 2012.