From the Forest to the Whale: How to Save Biodiversity to Save Ourselves

THE LOSS OF BIODIVERSITY

«Our current lifestyle is changing biodiversity, and nature is disappearing. In 1937, 66% of nature was pristine, and today only 35% remains so. Much of the evolution that has occurred has been in vain, because there has always been a mass extinction afterwards. We have driven millions of animals to extinction and cut down three trillion trees worldwide. Half of the world's rainforests have already been cleared». This is the testimony of what Attenborough saw and reported in his documentary, in which he emphasizes that if we continue to have unsustainable behaviors, our system will collapse.

Climate changes are already decimating ecosystems and uprooting species at such a rate that scientists have concluded we are living through the «sixth mass extinction». Today, biodiversity is facing an unequal struggle dominated by excessive land exploitation, habitat loss and degradation, unsustainable agricultural practices, the spread of invasive species, pollution, and overexploitation. Soil is a crucial natural resource for ecosystems but suffers from the pressure of cities, infrastructure, and agricultural production.

According to researchers, coral reefs will be the first ecosystems to reach ecological extinction. They host a quarter of all marine life, up to a million species. And they provide at least half a billion people with work and food by protecting coasts from storms and floods. But scholars believe that by 2030, 90% of coral reefs will be threatened and by 2050 they will disappear.

Along the coast of Queensland, the Great Barrier Reef of Australia extends for 2,300 kilometers: the largest living structure in the world covering an area the size of Japan. It is so extensive that it can be seen from space, and it is one of the largest and most splendid natural treasures the world possesses. 

It is included among the assets protected by Unesco because it hosts more than four hundred types of corals, 1,600 species of fish, four thousand types of mollusks, twenty species of seabirds, and six of the seven species of turtles that exist in the world. Today it is one of the most affected reefs, because it has faced several mass bleaching events, which occur when water temperatures become too hot, causing the formation of toxins harmful to the coral. The coral then expels its algae, and its white skeleton remains covered only by a thin transparent tissue.

WHALES

The solutions proposed to change something, experts believe, involve the necessity to increase whale populations, which after decades of hunting are now less than a quarter of what they once were. This is stated by a study from the International Monetary Fund, according to which the entire whale ecosystem has a capacity to absorb carbon dioxide that is unparalleled on the planet: it is worth thousands of trees. Marine biologists have in fact discovered that large whales play a significant role in capturing carbon from the atmosphere because they accumulate it in their bodies during their lives. When they die, they sink to the bottom of the ocean; each large whale sequesters an average of thirty-three tons of CO₂, removing that carbon from the atmosphere for centuries. A tree, meanwhile, absorbs only about twenty-one kilograms of CO₂ per year.

Where whales live, phytoplankton also exists: microscopic creatures that not only contribute at least 50% of all oxygen to our atmosphere, but do so by capturing about 40% of all CO₂ produced. An amount equal to that captured by four Amazon forests.

More phytoplankton means more carbon capture. Scientists have discovered that whales have a multiplier effect on the increase of phytoplankton production. Many whales push deep to search for food as far as light does not reach. When they rise to the surface, they release feces that fertilize, containing iron and nitrogen, which phytoplankton needs to grow. Rising, they also push the phytoplankton upwards, giving these microorganisms more time to reproduce and photosynthesize, during which carbon dioxide is absorbed.

The protection of whales must therefore rise to the top of the priority list in the fight against global warming. Because if whales could return to being as many as they once were, this could also significantly increase the amount of phytoplankton in the oceans and the carbon captured each year. Oceans produce half of our oxygen, and food for a billion people. And because they absorb enormous amounts of carbon dioxide, they are also one of our best defenses against climate change.

Not everyone knows that whales are extremely important in combating climate change because they are able to sequester large amounts of carbon dioxide and fertilize the oceans, promoting oxygen production.

How do they do it? A whale feeds on krill (a Norwegian word meaning simply shrimp), small crustaceans found in the sea that grow by eating phytoplankton. With its mouth open, the whale swallows them into its digestive system, and naturally they exit on the other side as feces and urine. In nature these products are rich in mineral salts (like fertilizer made from manure) and end up feeding the phytoplankton again.

In this way, through a waste element, it is possible to supply something that can support the production of algae capable of fixing carbon dioxide. Through this mechanism, oxygen is also produced: more than half of the oxygen on Earth is produced by the phytoplankton that populate the oceans.

In the end, a single whale is capable of storing 33 tons of carbon dioxide per year, to which we must add the mechanism of its carcass, which sequesters additional carbon dioxide in its mass and bones that, after death, settle on the seabed. It is estimated that the total global production of microalgae in the oceans has an extremely important impact on the carbon dioxide balance in the atmosphere: around 37 billion tons of carbon dioxide when considered together, comparable to four Amazon rainforests. Of this enormous amount, 1% is due to fertilization by cetaceans. It may seem little, but it is enormous: it is equivalent to the entire production of the Mediterranean Sea. If the planet's whales were to die out, it would be as if we suddenly erased the entire Mare Nostrum.