Of the 75,000 or so edible plant species, only around 150 are widely cultivated, just three of which provide 50 per cent of our food. In humanity’s drive to feed an ever-growing population, we have become dependent on a few high-yielding varieties of these crops.
The maintenance of biodiversity, however, is key to ensuring we have crops that can withstand diseases and a changing climate.Traditional varieties and the wild relatives of commercial crops provide a critical reserve of genes that are regularly needed to strengthen and adapt their modern domestic cousins in a changing world. Allowing these to become extinct on farms or in the wild endangers food security. Yet research suggests that the world’s centres of crop diversity remain inadequately protected, and that we may have already eradicated threequarters of the planet’s agricultural crop genetic diversity.
We are also failing to look after our ocean harvests. The annual catch of the global fishing industry is worth USD 70–80 billion, with around 500 million people relying on fish as their principal source of animal protein. But the current fish catch is unsustainable. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, more than 50 per cent of global fish stocks are fully exploited and 25 per cent overexploited, depleted or recovering from depletion. Some fisheries have already collapsed, and others are predicted to do so. According to some scientists, commercial fishing will no longer be viable by 2048. Yet, despite the role that marine protected areas can play in replenishing stocks, less than 1 per cent of the marine environment is protected.
When countries made the commitment to protect one-tenth of ecosystem types by 2010, they were, in part, agreeing to ensure future food supplies. But more systematic identification and protection of the places containing wild crop relatives and of key breeding and nursery areas for fish stocks are needed to secure the future food supply for a growing population.